Final Fantasy Online
The game that could’ve killed the company: Final Fantasy XIII, Final Fantasy XIV
Square Enix
Upon its release in ‘09, many saw Final Fantasy XIII as the lowest point in the series. Square Enix solved that by releasing the original Final Fantasy XIV, an even worse game. Don’t get us wrong, XIV replaced the infinite corridor the entirety of the previous game took place in with the vastness of an online open world, too bad that world was so broken its terrain tended to swallow players from time to time. XIII was a bad product, but it was bad by design.
Square Enix
XIV was unintentionally bad, and therefore a kind of bad no one could work with. Square Enix had no choice but to kill the project… for a while.
The unbelievable comeback: Also Final Fantasy XIV
Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn (the subtitle is a glorious inside joke) was a great comeback from Final Fantasy XIII as well as Final Fantasy XIV itself. Yeah, after pulling the plug on the project, Square did a serious overhaul on the game and then came back with a finished product. The new XIV had a slow start because, well, fool me once shame on you, fool me twice I’m gonna play World Of Warcraft, but once they got the ball running it grew so huge Square Enix ran out of digital copies to sell. The company deserves high praise for not just killing the project right there and then or for not force-feeding a terrible game on us (as they did with XIII).
Square Enix