Final Fantasy 9fans were geared up for the big remake announcement this week to celebrate the game’s 25th anniversary. Instead,it’s now looking more likely than ever that the game might not actually exist after all, so to help ease the pain, a lot of you have just been going back to the original and playing that instead.
That’s ifFinal Fantasy 9’s recent Steam numbersare anything to go by. The beauty of living in a time when backwards compatibility has finally become the norm is that if there’s a game you love from your past, there’s a better chance than ever before that there’s a legitimate way to play it. If that game is Final Fantasy 9,you’re able to play it on Steam, and a fair few of you have been.
Final Fantasy 9 just hit its highest player count since 2017
Let’s all forget we were waiting for that remake, together
Final Fantasy 9 officially turned 25 on Monday, and right before it hit that milestone, the game achieved its highest player count in more than seven years.There were 1,177 of you playing Final Fantasy 9at the same time on Sunday afternoon, which might not sound like a lot, but bear in mind this is an exclusively offline single-player game, and we can only check in on one platform’s numbers. Oh yeah, and it’s 25 years old.
The last time that many people were playing Final Fantasy 9 concurrently on Steam was February 2017, less than a year after the game launched on PC. The spike in players was likely caused by a combination of fans excited for what the next day might bring, and those resigned to the fact that the remake might not be real after all, so they’re playing through the original again to ease the pain.
Rumors that Final Fantasy 9 might be the next in the series to get the remake treatment have been swirling for years. It’s the last game standing from the infamous NVIDIA leak that hasn’t either been released or officially confirmed to be real, the other sole survivor beingthe Final Fantasy Tactics remaster that we now know will be released later this year.
Fans assumed the lack of a Final Fantasy 9 remake reveal alongside the Tactics announcement was simply because it was being saved for the 25th anniversary.Square Enixdid a lot to mark the occasion,launching an official Final Fantasy 9 site and filling it with merch, but as it stands, there is no remake.
Maybe if we keep flocking back to the original game and pushing that Steam number up, Square will notice and get the project up and running again. Even if the remake has been canceled, its appearance in the aforementioned leak effectively confirmed that it existed at some point. Hopefully, that means if it’s not in the works anymore, Square won’t need to start from scratch if it decides it might be worth finishing after all.
