Stop me if you’ve heard me say this before: Three years after setting out to retell the entire Final Fantasy VII saga in mobile form, Final Fantasy VII Ever Crisis is shutting down. Square Enix announced tonight that the free-to-play gacha will end service for both the Japanese and Global versions on October 6, 2026, at 11:00 PM Pacific (2:00 AM Eastern on October 7). The game launched on iOS and Android on September 7, 2023, and came to PC via Steam on December 6 of that year.
Sales of Red Crystals, the game’s paid currency, ended alongside tonight’s announcement, though any crystals players already own can be spent until the servers go dark. Square Enix says account information will be deleted once the shutdown procedures wrap up, and in a detail that stands out, refunds for unused paid currency will only be offered to players residing in Taiwan, with the process to be detailed in-game at a later date.
In an accompanying letter, producer Shoichi Ichikawa explained the decision ultimately came down to money, specifically the difficulty of balancing production costs against player demand for character weapons and gear. Delivering high-quality equipment visuals remained a priority given how passionate fans are about these characters, Ichikawa says, but weighing that against development costs and a gameplay balance that encouraged party diversity proved to be an ongoing struggle. In the end, the team determined it couldn’t maintain the level of service expected of a game carrying the Final Fantasy VII name.
The wind-down plan is busier than these end-of-service announcements usually go, and it starts with Square Enix making good on a launch-era promise. The story of Before Crisis -Final Fantasy VII-, the 2004 prequel that never left Japan, will finally be told in three parts from July through August. Then on September 6, 2026, the game’s three-year anniversary, Ever Crisis will release the final chapter of its Final Fantasy VII saga, a climax Ichikawa says the team has been building toward since launch, alongside new weapons, gear, seasonal quests, and customization options for existing weapons. Past content will also return across the final three months so lapsed players can come back and see everything.
Developed by Applibot and published by Square Enix, Ever Crisis retold the stories of the broader Final Fantasy VII compilation in bite-sized monthly chapters, covering the original game, Crisis Core, and an original storyline chronicling a young Sephiroth. If Applibot sounds familiar, it’s the same studio behind NieR Re[in]carnation, which Square Enix shut down back in April 2024 after a similar three-and-a-half-year run.
The timing is honestly surprising, because Final Fantasy VII Revelation arrives in Spring 2027 as the finale of the remake trilogy, and you would assume a game built entirely on Final Fantasy VII nostalgia would at least survive long enough to ride that wave. Instead, Ever Crisis will be roughly half a year in the ground by the time Cloud’s latest story concludes.
As much as I am a Final Fantasy VII fan, and I currently consider Final Fantasy VII Rebirth the best game I’ve ever played, I couldn’t play Ever Crisis for more than a few months. In my first impressions back during the 2023 closed beta, I noted the game was essentially a reskin of NieR Re[in]carnation, right down to the combat system, and the overall gameplay just never became compelling. There was too much downtime in between story drops, too, which made it easy to drift away and hard to come back.
Players who stuck with it have until October 6 to see everything through, with events scheduled right up to the end. Obviously, the Final Fantasy VII brand itself is in no danger, though, with Revelation set to close out the remake trilogy on PlayStation 5, XBOX Series X|S, Switch 2, and PC next spring.
