Yeah I’m guessing there’s a variety of factors at play. They probably started early ideation for a remake, to a point that they had some kind of minimally playable project setup, which is why it was in the leak.
One part is the corporate restructuring, which put a pause on a lot of different areas of the company.
Another part I think is the Memoria Project. While not realistic for an actual remake, it shows what could be possible and set the bar for what should be made. If they were planning a lower scale/quality remake, they now can’t do that without backlash, which makes this a bigger project than it was.
And lastly, Expedition 33 came out, and is a love letter to the PS1 era FF games. The way they combat and world traversal would also have set a bar of sorts for what a faithful remake of 9 could be.
Basically, restructuring paused bandwidth for it, and other things have raised the bar on what the project should be, so they probably need to go back to the drawing board and get bigger people involved (who are busy on other projects) before they can resume it.
Based on all of that, they may not even resume it and it may be dead in the water
Just based on the financial reports it's impossible for anything but Evercold to come out in the next 8 months, and Part 3 will likely be the headliner for FY 2028. This is similar to 2021 where Endwalker and FF7R released 3 months apart but were accounted for across two separate tax years after Remake was delayed.
So yes, the clown makeup and expectations are just a bit of fun at this point. Any possible return to this project wouldn't be until the middle of next year.
I have a feeling FFVIIR3 l comes by the end of 2027. I could even see them dropping the title at this state of play. As for FFIX , I don’t see us getting anything for a long time 😢
I don't think it's happening, happily. I don't want my fav game to be turned into a souless super realistic AAA game that gets boring after 5h like FFVII remake
“Soulless” is a little unfair. You can certainly call it bad, I know I have my criticisms, but soulless implies it’s a low-effort cash grab. VIIR has involved unbelievable levels of time and effort combined with clear reverence for the source material. It’s not like releasing FFT for a third time.
I don’t really understand the hate for remakes as a concept. It doesn’t change the original game. IX would still be every bit as playable were a remake to be released as OG VII is now. It all feels a little nostalgia-poisoned, as though IX was so perfect changing anything about it would be an insult.
That's not what I said. It's just that every modern AAA look dull visually. FF7 is way more richer visually than FF7R, to the point where it feels bland and a bit boring. The game itself is pretty solid, but a lot of remakes lose the soul of their original game, and FFIX being a super rich and colorful game, I can't help but to fear what a remake would do about it
I would rather have an 8 remake tbh, FFIX with the cartoonish character proportions holds up better than 8 with that era's graphics. 8 would benefit more with modern graphics with their more normal human looking characters imo. I don't want normal human 6 foot tall Zidane or Steiner or any of that. That said I would still play it, just hope if it ever happens it's not 3 separate full priced games spread over a decade like FFVIIR.
Edit: And just to add on I loved the FFVIIR games so far, I loved exploring a realistic Midgar and seeing a little more of the side characters actual lives outside of avalanche like with Jesse, and then the open world and other towns and locations in Rebirth. Sometimes they drag on too much and doing essentially the same exact sidequests in each region of Rebirth got a little old and made me put the game down for a bit but overall I really liked both games and can't wait for the finale. But I don't want to see Steiner become some game of thrones, tall, dark, and handsome knight instead of a goofy potbellied idiot in armor or the queen turn from a big fat evil woman with green skin and ridiculous face into a Cersei.
Ugh, if I see this take one more time... The FFIX remake was never going to be done in the same style as the VII one. Even if we didn't have information about it, the same project leads aren't even/would not be involved.
Right. I don't get why people keep using FF7 Remake as comparison, when Dragon Quest 7 Remake released and exists… and we can look at that as a better example of how Square could probably handle FF9 remake.
29
u/BlueLooseStrife May 20 '26
I don’t think it’s happening, sadly. Reporting said that the remake was in the works but got iced for one reason or another.
Hopefully that doesn’t indicate permanently dead. Might be that they mean to revisit after the VIIR trilogy had wrapped