The Latest on FFIX Remake

Yesterday was the 25th Anniversary of Final Fantasy IX Release on Japan and this celebration was met with a musical livestream and some merchandise at the official website. There was incredible amount of buzz from the community who were expecting that Final Fantasy 9 Remake would be unveiled at this day and of course it didn’t happen. We wrote extensively about Final Fantasy IX Remake leaks while back and especially the recent unveiling of Final Fantasy Tactics Remaster reinforces the famous Nvidia Leak theory, where lot of these theories spawned from.

So Did FFIX Remake Get Cancelled?

On my previous video entry on the subject I discussed that there are couple of possible places where the remake could get unveiled – these being: Summer Game Fest, 25th Anniversary Date, Tokyo Game Show and final entry of the year which is the Game Awards 2025. From marketing point of a view the biggest eyeballs would be at the Game awards, but symbolically the anniversary date was the place to unveil it honestly.

Creators like Davidvinc made the case that Square wants Final Fantasy to be more of a yearly release thing, with Tactics remaster coming in 2025, Final Fantasy 9 Remake on 2026 and Final Fantasy 7 Part 3 would be dropping then on 2027. Releasing or marketing two games at the same year can create consumer fatigue and evening out the releases per year like Atlus with Persona series or Namco Tales Studio with theirs might be the path to go.

This may sound like copium/hopium to some, but until the year has come to an end there is still hope that they will be unveiling Final Fantasy IX Remake to the masses. It would also be possible they could unveil it at Q1 of 2026, but that would be highly unlikely in my opinion.

Data that Supports FFIX Remake Cancellation

Despite me thinking there is plenty of evidence from multiple leakers and other sources that the game was in the making, I need to play the devils advocate here and look at some of the bad stuff here too, so lets go point by point.

1. Earlier when Square-Enix announced that they would be cancelling lot of the projects it might be possible that FFIX Remake was on that list. Prominent Leakers like NateTheHate also has made statements that this project potentially got shelved.
2. Also earlier this year we had the bankruptcy of Cyber Group Studios, which was working on FFIX Animated series that was a sequel that was focused on Vivi’s Kids known as “Final Fantasy IX: The Black Mages’ Legacy” and I always was saying that this was part of the cross promotion for the Remake, because they also did companion anime with FFXV when it came out. The series not being moved to another animation studio is a bad signal.
3. There are lot of games being in Development at Square and given how they are already working on Final Fantasy VII Part 3, Kingdom Hearts 4, Final Fantasy 14 and other games, it might make sense in some level that they just didn’t have resources for this FFIX Remake. That being said there was initial leaks that the game was initially being outsourced until it was brought to inhouse development.

Then of course we have to realize that Square has never said anything that this game was in the making, but given the Nvidia Leak they really didn’t have to as everything on that list kinda proves that the game was in the making at some point, but when it

Hope Dies Last

I think most haters have to concede the fact that the game was at least in the making at some point, but then recently it was cancelled or maybe it was cancelled earlier. Now given all the information we have there are only few potential outcomes.

• A) The Game is fully cancelled
• B) FFIX Remake is complete and they are just waiting for a good release window for the game
• C) The scope and the budget of the game got axed and maybe they are looking for other development team finishing it (it was already initially leaked that it was going to be Double-A release)
• D) FFIX Remake is currently on pause and they might continue it later once financial situation looks better

Ultimately the most biggest point of hopium is that given the Nvidia Leak was years ago it would make sense that Square-Enix did indeed have the time to finish this game. I’m assuming that if they did actually cancel the game, it must’ve been at 85% to 95% completion here, which would sound extremely crazy to shelve at this point since its critically acclaimed game that would’ve sold very well.

At this point getting just a Final Fantasy IX Remaster would also be improvement on the sluggish PC port that basically requires you to use mods and if you happen to be interested we did create a list of Best Final Fantasy IX Mods you can get for your steam version, so make sure to check that one out.