The live-action TV series of Final Fantasy XIV is no longer in production. According to Hivemind, this was because very few companies wanted to risk making a show of its size or scale. [Thanks, Inside Games!]
The show was originally a collaboration between Sony Pictures Television and Hivemind. Hivemind worked on the popular live-action adaptation of The Witcher for Netflix, so it already had a proved itself capable. Dinesh Shamdasani, one of the co-founders of Hivemind, revealed the news of the dead project on Twitter (X) in response to another user asking about it. He explained that though there was a pilot script and a multi-season plan, the size and scale of the project was too much. Amazon was the closest to taking it on but evidently backed out.
Jake Thorton, who worked on said pilot script, added to the conversation by stating that COVID-19 was the biggest nail in the live-action Final Fantasy XIV show’s coffin. The team pitched the show right as studios started budgeting more carefully for quarantine. As a reminder, the initial announcement for the project came out in 2019, which was slightly before COVID-19 became a global pandemic.
Though the Hivemind live-action show of Final Fantasy XIV will never see the light of day, there are other live-action adaptations of the MMORPG series. It’s not exactly an adaptation of the story, per se. But FFIXV: Dad of Light is a story about how the game can serve as a positive influence on people in real life. The show is available on Netflix.
Final Fantasy XIV is readily available on the PS4, PS5, Windows PC, and macOS. The Xbox Series X version of it will come out in Q2 2024.
