Final Fantasy XIV Sparks a World Record You've Probably Never Seen

FINAL FANTASY XIV: A Realm Reborn has entered the annals of Guinness World Records, but not for its playerbase or expansive content, rather for a part of the game that few people will ever experience. The game has been flagged as the videogame with the longest credits in the world.

Weighing in at a hefty 1 hour and 38 minutes, the credits are by far the longest of any game. You could speedrun both Portal games in that time, and still have enough time to finish Quake and make yourself a cup of coffee. Alternatively, you could watch last year's blockbuster London has Fallen in its entirety.

But why is this a thing? What makes the credits so long?. Sure, we all know that MMOs need a lot of work, but there can't be that many staff can there? The answer is emphatically no. Whilst the credits do celebrate the achievements of all the creative talent behind the game, they also celebrate the fans. Every single player that played the first iteration of Final Fantasy XIV, before the Realm Reborn shake-up, is listed in the credits as a thank you to players who kept faith with Square Enix. It's certainly a lovely gesture, but probably one that most people won't have the patience to sit though. Nonetheless, it's earned the game a place in the record books.

Final Fantasy XIV also received the record for the “Most original pieces of music in a videogame (including expansions). The game features 384 individual pieces of music recorded specifically for the game. This can be broken down as 280 pieces for the main game (Ver 2.0~2.55) and 104 from the 2015 expansion Heavensward (Ver 3.0~3.45). This is before the Stormblood expansion arrives on the 20th of June, so that number can only go up.

The Final Fantasy series itself also got awarded with a World Record for being the "most prolific role playing game series" by number of games. As of 15th February 2017, there have been a staggering 87 RPG titles bearing the Final Fantasy name. Given that series creator Hironobu Sakaguchi thought it would be his final game (hence the title), that's pretty good going!