October 6 Is Officially The End Of An Era For Final Fantasy 7

Final Fantasy 7 is set for a big moment in 2027 with the release of Final Fantasy 7 Revelation, but one part of its history will be laid to rest before then. Over the years, FF7 has turned from a single game in a larger franchise to a multimedia enterprise of its own, spawning everything from spin-off games to the Advent Children feature film.

Some of those spin-off games will be with us forever, like Crisis Core: FF7 or even the divisive Dirge of Cerberus. When it comes to the live-service landscape, though, things are less permanent, and things are winding to a close for the mobile game Final Fantasy 7 Ever Crisis.

In July this year, Final Fantasy 7 Ever Crisis announced the planned end of service on October 6, 2026, at 11 PM PDT. While it’s far from the first Square Enix mobile title to shut down, it had an unexpectedly short lifespan, lasting hardly more than three years since its September 2023 launch. Its tenure on PC was even shorter, as it was originally ported in December 2023.

FF7 Ever Crisis offered its own take on remaking Final Fantasy 7, reimagining both the original story and adding some surrounding material of its own. In some ways, it’s arguably more loyal to the original experience, with less narrative revisionism and a turn-based combat system that’s more directly related to the original Active Time Battle approach.

Zack Fair holding sword towards camera from FF7 Ever Crisis.

The big caveat with Ever Crisis, of course, was its monetization. As a mobile gacha game, Ever Crisis featured plenty of opportunities to spend real money, a prospect that rarely helps the immersion of an engrossing narrative experience. Unlike many mobile games on the verge of shutting down, Ever Crisis also didn’t offer a boatload of free currency to give players some additional fun before the end. Nonetheless, it did bring back past content for players who missed it the first time around.

Despite its untimely demise, Ever Crisis did manage to complete the original Final Fantasy 7 story, a goal that it had been working toward in episodic installments across the course of the past three years. It also hit the events of Before Crisis, a much older mobile game focusing on the Turks, this summer to fulfill one of its original promises.

With only a few days left now, Ever Crisis fans are likely to spend plenty of time in the game this weekend, if they haven’t already wrapped up everything they wanted to do in it. For those who never checked it out, you might still have a chance, as it’s currently showing up on digital storefronts despite having previously been delisted. If Final Fantasy 7 teaches us anything, though, it’s that the end eventually comes for us all.