In late July,
Naoki "Yoshi-P" Yoshida tried to be a fireman to fan expectations about potential Final Fantasy VI, VIII, and IX remakes, stating that they would need even more installments than the soon-to-be-concluded Final Fantasy VII remake trilogy.
While commenting on the statement, VG247 and RPGSite's
Alex Donaldson revealed in a ResetEra post that
the long-rumored Final Fantasy IX remake was very far along but was eventually halted. However, that's not to say the work that has been done won't be picked up again in the future. Donaldson also claimed that the Japanese publisher
will focus on developing new Final Fantasy games after the VII remake trilogy concludes, rather than sticking with remakes.
There was an FF9 remake, and it was a single game, and it was very far along. Yoshida even made some vague comments like these, hinting at the fact around the last expansion's FF9 tribute content. So, it is possible, with the right scope, which to be clear is obviously a smaller scope than FF7R. However, for various reasons - surely a story for another day - that project stalled out, and it's no longer moving forward. And Yoshida makes comments like this to manage fan expectations.
And of course, the thing is, the path can always change again. This new mobile Dissidia game spent the better part of a year effectively canceled before being revived, for instance. So nothing is concrete and in the case of Final Fantasy 9 that work is still there waiting to be revisited, though I did feel the game was truly dead when illustrations created as potential box art and as key art were just tweeted out for the anniversary.
Anyway, it's the same with Yoshida's teasing comments about Hamaguchi on Final Fantasy 17 -- he doesn't say that unless he knows that's the current plan. It's how he rolls. But also, the thing about these teases is, the plan is the plan until it isn't the plan. Things can change, and SE has, in the last decade, had a very transient dev setup where stuff changes often. Their new structure appears to finally be giving stability, though.
What this is really all about is that SE has made the decision that after they close out the Final Fantasy 7 Remake trilogy, they need to focus on new stories and less on mining the past, which has done okay for them but ultimately offered diminishing returns. If you want to grow the franchise, remakes probably aren't it.
Last we heard, the Final Fantasy IX remake was "
in trouble". That was nearly a year ago.
Do you agree with Square Enix's strategy, or would you rather have them complete the Final Fantasy IX remake at least, since it's already far along?
