It’s the end of an era for the gaming industry, as Square Enix turns off the last PS2 servers for Final Fantasy XI.
The first Final Fantasy MMO was released over a decade ago, in 2002, later seeing a release on Xbox 360 too.
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The Xbox servers are to be turned off in conjunction with the PS2’s.
To put the shutdown in perspective, Final Fantasy XI had been running for longer than EVE Online (2003), World of Warcraft (2004), the Guild Wars franchise (2005) and Star Wars: The Old Republic (2011).
Not bad for a console that wasn’t originally designed with online gaming functionality out of the box.
Final Fantasy XI was one of a wave of PS2 titles that utilised the newfangled (at the time) Network Adaptor for online play.
The lack of PS2 servers in general hasn’t stopped gamers from going online though, thanks to software like XlinkKai.
This program effectively fools PS2 games into going online via the console’s LAN play mode.
This is unlikely to work with Final Fantasy XI though, as the game doesn’t have a LAN mode.
Feature image: William Hook via Flickr
