Dissidia Final Fantasy NT is dead - no more updates for Arcade or PS4, no plans for a sequel

It looks like it's the end of the line for the struggling Dissidia Final Fantasy NT and its parent game Dissidia Final Fantasy Arcade. Both versions of the game are set to wrap up in the next few weeks, Square Enix announced in an update stream about the game.

This marks an unceremonious end to the game, which has consistently seen a decent level of success in Japanese arcades but struggled to find an audience on console.

In arcades its three-on-three multiplayer battles worked more easily, but on console a lack of single-player content and netcode that helped to suffocate the complex and often convoluted battle system made it difficult to recommend. A later free-to-play release, which also hit PC, suffered the same fate and failed to reinvigorate the game's online community.

Despite that, Dissidia NT has received significant support over the years. A number of classic FF heroes and villains were added to the game, always first arriving in Japanese arcades before making their way to console a little while later. Final Fantasy XV villain Ardyn Izunia joined the roster just last month.

It appears Ardyn will be the final character addition, with the updates rolling out this month and next simply about balancing of characters and summon monsters. The last major update for NT will happen on March 5, with the arcade version getting it earlier on February 20. While updates for the game will cease, producer Ichiro Hazama confirmed that the online service will continue across all platforms.

"The online service will still continue running so it won't be a case where you cannot play the game anymore," Hazama said. The stream also clarified that the online service would also "eventually end", but players will be informed about the timing of that later "when the time is near."

The live stream was also used to temper fan expectations for the future. Despite support for Dissidia Final Fantasy NT coming to a rather sudden end, there are currently no plans for a sequel to the fighting spin-off that began life on the PSP.

"We don't want to make false anticipations, so we want to make it clear that right now there are no plans for a [Dissidia Final Fantasy] 2 at all," director Takeo Kujiraoka explained. 

There will be a final officially supported Dissidia Final Fantasy tournament at fighting game event Toushinsai in Japan - which will be after the final patch. If they found some balance-breaking issues after the final major update, they promised they will still work on a minor update to re-balance the game.

That, as they say, is all she wrote. It's the end of the line for Dissidia NT, but it'll still be playable online - if you can find a match, which was difficult enough when the game was getting regular updates. Here's hoping the series can return one day with a less polarizing release.