Final Fantasy VII Ever Crisis Actually Goes Dark Today in Europe and Asia

Final Fantasy VII Ever Crisis reaches its literal final hours today outside North America. Square Enix's official shutdown is October 6 at 11pm Pacific, which converts to October 7 at 08:00 CEST in much of Europe and 15:00 JST in Japan. The free-to-play RPG therefore disappears today for a large portion of its audience after just over three years.

Ever Crisis launched on iOS and Android in September 2023 and attempted the formidable task of reorganising the sprawling Compilation of Final Fantasy VII into an accessible mobile package, covering Cloud, Zack, Sephiroth and additional original material. It later reached Steam, but remained an online service rather than a conventional preserved RPG. Square Enix stopped selling Red Crystals in July and allowed existing currency to be spent until shutdown.

Once service ends, normal access disappears and account information is scheduled for deletion after end-of-service procedures. Yesterday's digest warned that the shutdown was imminent; today it has actually happened in Europe and Japan. That distinction matters. Mobile gaming has become extremely good at constructing elaborate persistent worlds, but Ever Crisis again demonstrates the uncomfortable consequence of building those worlds entirely on somebody else's server. Even Sephiroth cannot parry an HTTP 503.