Final Fantasy creator's F2P game hits 1M downloads in 3 weeks

Terra Battle, the debut free-to-play mobile game from Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi's Mistwalker studio, has been downloaded more than a million times worldwide in the three weeks since its October 9th launch. While that's perhaps unsurprising in light of the game's pedigree, it's interesting from a game design perspective because it means Mistwalker must now follow through on producing the free Terra Battle DLC and other rewards it promised as part of the game's novel "Download Starter" promotional campaign (which was inspired by crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter.) "The concept of having fans fund development is not my style so I decided to make a variation of the format by basing the rewards off of downloads," Sakaguchi told Gamasutra earlier this month. "I feel that mobile game development is a fluid process and it is like a festival, where many people can help grow the title." Mistwalker is now expected to update the game with new features while Terra Battle (and former Final Fantasy) composer Nobuo Uematsu will be performing a live concert featuring music from the game. "I did not expect Terra Battle to reach this milestone this quickly," said Uematsu in a press release. "It will take time to rehearse." Going forward, it will be interesting to see how Mistwalker fulfills the remaining reward tiers of the Terra Battle Download Starter campaign; the studio has promised to begin production on a Terra Battle title for consoles when the mobile game hits 2 million downloads.