Final Fantasy 9 Fans Are Getting Everything But What They…

25 years after its initial launch, Final Fantasy 9 remains one of Final Fantasy's treasured classics. Considered by many to be their favorite in the series, this PlayStation 1 title offered Final Fantasy's prestige presentation, gameplay, and storytelling in a high fantasy package that harkened back to its earliest days on the NES. While Final Fantasy 9 wasn't to everyone's tastes, owing to how different it was to the more mature-looking Final Fantasy 7 and 8, it roped enough players in to cement itself as an enduring touchstone for the series.

While it only has one modern port to all platforms to show for its efforts, fans have been celebrating Final Fantasy 9’s qualities for many years, and Square Enix is finally joining them in earnest. The 25th anniversary of FF9 has quickly turned into one of the largest milestone celebrations Final Fantasy has thrown for one of its entries in recent memory. It feels good to see Square Enix rule out the red carpet for one of its more underrated RPGs, but it's hard to ignore how this anniversary's top-end announcements are thinner than expected.

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By Liam Ferguson

Final Fantasy 9’s Anniversary Has Summoned An Embarrassment of Riches

This Scale Of Support Is Unprecedented For FF9

Festivities for Final Fantasy 9's anniversary began well before July 7. Back in 2024, Final Fantasy 14 launched its Dawntrail expansion, which was filled with pointed references and homages to Final Fantasy 9’s setting and characters. Then, roughly a month before FF9's anniversary, Magic: The Gathering released its Final Fantasy-themed Universes Beyond set, which featured FF9's Black Mage party member Vivi as an especially strong card. In between these two events, Square Enix put up a website specifically to keep track of everything that was happening for Final Fantasy 9’s anniversary, and, now that the special day has passed, that site has plenty to list.

Merchandise is plentiful, with everything from plushes, to music boxes, to Vivi's own hat being available for purchase, and that's just the beginning. An FF9 music vinyl is being released, a fanart contest is underway, a picturebook detailing Vivi's early life for the first time is being localized in 2026, tie-ins with the Japan-only Square Eastern mobile games Emberstoria and Sengoku Ixa will host new 3D models for FF9 characters, and several memorable cutscenes were even arranged in a high-resolution “movie,” with more goods likely on the way. Final Fantasy 9 has never had more attention, but ironically, fans had been expecting something else.

Final Fantasy 9’s Biggest Announcements Are A No-Show At Its Anniversary

In fact, there are two projects that the FF community has anticipated for years that are conspicuously missing from the anniversary line-up. The first is a Final Fantasy 9 animated show from Cyber Group Studios, which was announced in June 2021 and went silent for the subsequent four years. Second, and even more notable, is a Final Fantasy 9 remake listed in the Nvidia GeForce Now database leak from the same year. Even as useful as the Nvidia leak has proven, an FF9 remake’s existence has been continually reinforced by more leaks and insider statements in the ensuing years.

New Final Fantasy 9 Adaptations Missed Their Most Exciting Announcement Window

That then begs the question of where these major Final Fantasy 9 products are. As nice as Vivi’s backstory book is, it’s not a new FF9 game or a multimedia adaptation thereof, and the gravity of those announcements would deserve all the ceremony Square Enix is currently heaping on FF9’s anniversary. Square Enix does seem to be treating the back half of 2025 and first half of 2026 as a collective 25th anniversary window for Final Fantasy 9, so these exciting announcements could still arrive, even if their absence will overshadow all the proceedings in the meantime.

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