{"id":51440,"date":"2025-08-28T02:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-08-27T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/?p=51440"},"modified":"2025-08-27T18:41:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-27T09:41:10","slug":"square-enixs-10-year-old-mobile-game-grew-so-complex-it-became-difficult-to-manage-without-serious-bugs-producer-reveals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/square-enixs-10-year-old-mobile-game-grew-so-complex-it-became-difficult-to-manage-without-serious-bugs-producer-reveals\/","title":{"rendered":"Square Enix&#8217;s 10-year-old mobile game grew so complex it became difficult to manage without serious bugs, producer reveals\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Square Enix recently announced that <strong>Final Fantasy: Brave Exvius<\/strong> and <strong>Dragon Quest of the Stars<\/strong> will be ending services in Japan as of October 31, 2025, shortly after both mobile games celebrate their 10<sup>th<\/sup> anniversaries. While financial factors are possibly at play too, a notice from Dragon Quest of the Stars\u2019 producer reveals that the main cause for the shutdown are technical complications arising from the game being 10 years in the making.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Addressing players in an August 25 <a href=\"https:\/\/cache.sqex-bridge.jp\/guest\/information\/96614\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Square Enix Bridge entry<\/a>, Dragon Quest of the Stars producer Naoki Mutou says that keeping the game running for as long as possible has been his highest priority ever since he took over as producer <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/RyutaroIchimura\/status\/1580900204349251585\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">in 2022<\/a>. \u201cHowever, due to the production and development environment growing increasingly complex, I realized that it would be difficult to keep the service running at a satisfactory level.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mutou-P goes on to explain what he means by things becoming complex. \u201cThanks to your support, Dragon Quest of the Stars has been able to accumulate an enormous amount of content throughout the years. The game has continued to expand through a variety of new equipment of skills too. While this is something to be happy about, it has also made it increasingly difficult to manage elements of the game, make balancing adjustments and keep developing the game without glitches.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"ja\" dir=\"ltr\">\u3010\u91cd\u8981\u306a\u304a\u77e5\u3089\u305b\u3011<br>\u300e\u661f\u306e\u30c9\u30e9\u30b4\u30f3\u30af\u30a8\u30b9\u30c8\u300f\u306f\u3001\u8aa0\u306b\u52dd\u624b\u306a\u304c\u30892025\u5e7410\u670831\u65e5\uff08\u91d1\uff0912:00\u3092\u3082\u3061\u307e\u3057\u3066\u3001\u30b5\u30fc\u30d3\u30b9\u3092\u7d42\u4e86\u3055\u305b\u3066\u3044\u305f\u3060\u304f\u3053\u3068\u3068\u306a\u308a\u307e\u3057\u305f\u3002<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/%E6%98%9F%E3%83%89%E3%83%A9?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#\u661f\u30c9\u30e9<\/a> \u3092\u3053\u308c\u307e\u3067\u904a\u3093\u3067\u304f\u3060\u3055\u3044\u307e\u3057\u305f\u3059\u3079\u3066\u306e\u7686\u3055\u307e\u306b\u3001\u5fc3\u3088\u308a\u304a\u793c\u3092\u7533\u3057\u4e0a\u3052\u307e\u3059\u3002<br>\u8a73\u7d30\u306f\u304a\u77e5\u3089\u305b\u3092\u3054\u78ba\u8a8d\u304f\u3060\u3055\u3044\u3002\u2026<\/p>&mdash; \u661f\u306e\u30c9\u30e9\u30b4\u30f3\u30af\u30a8\u30b9\u30c8(\u661f\u30c9\u30e9)\u516c\u5f0f (@hoshidora_info) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hoshidora_info\/status\/1959874494463635469?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 25, 2025<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>According to the producer, the sheer number of functions in Dragon Quest of the Stars\u2019 game program has required tireless work from the development team to prevent unexpected behaviors and bugs from happening. But as of recent, \u201cwe have finally reached a point where it is no longer possible to keep the game running without impacting players.\u201d As such, Square Enix decided it would be best to use the 10<sup>th<\/sup> anniversary as an opportunity to wrap up the story and end the game.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s not known whether similar issues prompted the imminent shutdown of FF Brave Exvius too, but this is no doubt a problem many long-running live-service games are beginning to face. Japanese gacha game programmer and <a href=\"https:\/\/eihigh.hatenablog.com\/entry\/2023\/04\/09\/214734\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">technical blogger Eihigh notes<\/a> (based on personal experience) that, \u201cafter 10 years of operation, a game\u2019s code accumulates so much technical debt that it\u2019s impossible to pay it back. Releasing new features always takes utmost priority, so there\u2019s no testing, the tech stack is outdated, and it\u2019s impossible to tell which code is safe to delete and which code must never be touched.\u201d These issues grow in severity if personnel changes take place and developers who were present from day one leave the team. \u201cEvery day you\u2019re working in fear that your changes will make the game implode because of some past specifications you don\u2019t even know about.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On a related note, Square Enix\u2019s long-running MMORPG Final Fantasy XI faced the end of its server lifetime around 2024, and the company <a href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/square-enix-considered-ending-final-fantasy-11-in-2024-but-player-interest-was-high-enough-to-keep-it-alive-even-after-20-years\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">considered ending support for it as a living game<\/a> (they were going to put it into a permanent maintenance mode). Thankfully, FFXI still had so many players logging in daily that Square Enix found it worth their time and resources to update the game\u2019s infrastructure.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dragon Quest of the Stars producer Naoki Mutou talks about Square Enix&#8217;s decision to end the 10-year-old game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":51442,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gspb_post_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[64,3],"tags":[17],"class_list":["post-51440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-game-development","category-news","tag-japan-related-news"],"blocksy_meta":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Square Enix&#039;s 10-year-old mobile game grew so complex it became difficult to manage without serious bugs, producer reveals\u00a0 - AUTOMATON WEST<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Dragon Quest of the Stars producer Naoki Mutou talks about Square Enix&#039;s decision to end the 10-year-old game.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/square-enixs-10-year-old-mobile-game-grew-so-complex-it-became-difficult-to-manage-without-serious-bugs-producer-reveals\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Square Enix&#039;s 10-year-old mobile game grew so complex it became difficult to manage without serious bugs, producer reveals\u00a0 - AUTOMATON WEST\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Dragon Quest of the Stars producer Naoki Mutou talks about Square Enix&#039;s decision to end the 10-year-old game.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/square-enixs-10-year-old-mobile-game-grew-so-complex-it-became-difficult-to-manage-without-serious-bugs-producer-reveals\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"AUTOMATON WEST\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-08-27T17:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/20250827-51440-header.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1191\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"624\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Amber V\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@AUTOMATON_ENG\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@AUTOMATON_ENG\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Amber V\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Square Enix's 10-year-old mobile game grew so complex it became difficult to manage without serious bugs, producer reveals\u00a0 - AUTOMATON WEST","description":"Dragon Quest of the Stars producer Naoki Mutou talks about Square Enix's decision to end the 10-year-old game.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/square-enixs-10-year-old-mobile-game-grew-so-complex-it-became-difficult-to-manage-without-serious-bugs-producer-reveals\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Square Enix's 10-year-old mobile game grew so complex it became difficult to manage without serious bugs, producer reveals\u00a0 - AUTOMATON WEST","og_description":"Dragon Quest of the Stars producer Naoki Mutou talks about Square Enix's decision to end the 10-year-old game.","og_url":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/square-enixs-10-year-old-mobile-game-grew-so-complex-it-became-difficult-to-manage-without-serious-bugs-producer-reveals\/","og_site_name":"AUTOMATON WEST","article_published_time":"2025-08-27T17:00:00+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1191,"height":624,"url":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/20250827-51440-header.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Amber V","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@AUTOMATON_ENG","twitter_site":"@AUTOMATON_ENG","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Amber V","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/square-enixs-10-year-old-mobile-game-grew-so-complex-it-became-difficult-to-manage-without-serious-bugs-producer-reveals\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/square-enixs-10-year-old-mobile-game-grew-so-complex-it-became-difficult-to-manage-without-serious-bugs-producer-reveals\/"},"author":{"name":"Amber V","@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/#\/schema\/person\/fdc6517a00e35b6917ffdb02e8b574d9"},"headline":"Square Enix&#8217;s 10-year-old mobile game grew so complex it became difficult to manage without serious bugs, producer reveals\u00a0","datePublished":"2025-08-27T17:00:00+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/square-enixs-10-year-old-mobile-game-grew-so-complex-it-became-difficult-to-manage-without-serious-bugs-producer-reveals\/"},"wordCount":550,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/square-enixs-10-year-old-mobile-game-grew-so-complex-it-became-difficult-to-manage-without-serious-bugs-producer-reveals\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/20250827-51440-header.jpg","keywords":["News (Japan-related)"],"articleSection":["Game Development","News"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/square-enixs-10-year-old-mobile-game-grew-so-complex-it-became-difficult-to-manage-without-serious-bugs-producer-reveals\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/square-enixs-10-year-old-mobile-game-grew-so-complex-it-became-difficult-to-manage-without-serious-bugs-producer-reveals\/","url":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/square-enixs-10-year-old-mobile-game-grew-so-complex-it-became-difficult-to-manage-without-serious-bugs-producer-reveals\/","name":"Square Enix's 10-year-old mobile game grew so complex it became difficult to manage without serious bugs, producer reveals\u00a0 - AUTOMATON WEST","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/square-enixs-10-year-old-mobile-game-grew-so-complex-it-became-difficult-to-manage-without-serious-bugs-producer-reveals\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/square-enixs-10-year-old-mobile-game-grew-so-complex-it-became-difficult-to-manage-without-serious-bugs-producer-reveals\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/20250827-51440-header.jpg","datePublished":"2025-08-27T17:00:00+00:00","description":"Dragon Quest of the Stars producer Naoki Mutou talks about Square Enix's decision to end the 10-year-old game.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/square-enixs-10-year-old-mobile-game-grew-so-complex-it-became-difficult-to-manage-without-serious-bugs-producer-reveals\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/square-enixs-10-year-old-mobile-game-grew-so-complex-it-became-difficult-to-manage-without-serious-bugs-producer-reveals\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/square-enixs-10-year-old-mobile-game-grew-so-complex-it-became-difficult-to-manage-without-serious-bugs-producer-reveals\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/20250827-51440-header.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/20250827-51440-header.jpg","width":1191,"height":624,"caption":"Dragon Quest of the Stars"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/square-enixs-10-year-old-mobile-game-grew-so-complex-it-became-difficult-to-manage-without-serious-bugs-producer-reveals\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"\u30db\u30fc\u30e0","item":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Square Enix&#8217;s 10-year-old mobile game grew so complex it became difficult to manage without serious bugs, producer reveals\u00a0"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/#website","url":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/","name":"AUTOMATON WEST","description":"AUTOMATON is a website that covers the Japanese gaming world. We bring you the news on video games from Osaka and Tokyo.","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/#organization","name":"\u682a\u5f0f\u4f1a\u793e\u30a2\u30af\u30c6\u30a3\u30d6\u30b2\u30fc\u30df\u30f3\u30b0\u30e1\u30c7\u30a3\u30a2","url":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/activegamingmedia_logo.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/activegamingmedia_logo.png","width":374,"height":190,"caption":"\u682a\u5f0f\u4f1a\u793e\u30a2\u30af\u30c6\u30a3\u30d6\u30b2\u30fc\u30df\u30f3\u30b0\u30e1\u30c7\u30a3\u30a2"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/x.com\/AUTOMATON_ENG","https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCabvYnvuUUbbGUrxkaFRgSA"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/#\/schema\/person\/fdc6517a00e35b6917ffdb02e8b574d9","name":"Amber V","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/12252024-100x100.jpg","url":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/12252024-100x100.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/12252024-100x100.jpg","caption":"Amber V"},"description":"Editor-in-Chief since October 2023. She grew up playing Duke Nukem and Wolfenstein with her dad, and is now enamored with obscure Japanese video games and internet culture. Currently devoted to growing Automaton West to the size of its Japanese sister-site, while making sure to keep news concise and developer stories deep and stimulating.","url":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/author\/amber-vjestica\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/55"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51440"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51440\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51445,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51440\/revisions\/51445"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}