The Final Fantasy franchise is on a hot streak. Final Fantasy 16 just came out, and while it's struggling to salvage Square Enix’s weak financial year, its sales are still impressive for a PS5 exclusive. Meanwhile, the MMO Final Fantasy 14 is still riding high after consecutively praised expansions, and the Final Fantasy 7 Remake project just released Ever Crisis in preparation for FF7 Rebirth. Even Final Fantasy spin-offs are doing well, with Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin wrapping up its DLC, the Pixel Remasters arriving on consoles, and Chocobo GP removing its criticized microtransactions in 2023.

With a mixture of AA and AAA games, Square Enix has maintained a steady output of titles for the past couple of years. Looking at Final Fantasy's releases alone reveals a staggering number of big-name titles scattered throughout each fiscal year, and both leaks and official reveals have pointed towards even more in the near future. Final Fantasy's momentum has built to the point of resembling the time before Squaresoft and Enix merged, and it shows no sign of slowing down.

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Final Fantasy Is Entering Another Year Of Stacked Releases

Right now, only two future Final Fantasy projects have been dated, those being the PS5 launch of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth in February 2024, and the FF14 Dawntrail expansion in summer 2024. Final Fantasy will continue to get a major release every six to eight months, something it has kept up since Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7 Reunion launched in December 2022. The FF7 Remake’s third and final entry may be years away, but Final Fantasy 16 will get a PC release and two paid DLC episodes in the meantime. That's a lot of Final Fantasy, and it's not even everything fans know about.

Several years ago, an Nvidia GeForce Now leak revealed that a Final Fantasy 9 remake was coming, as well as a Final Fantasy Tactics remaster. That list has been proven right time and time again, and leakers and industry figures have heard so many reports about these two games that some now talk about them like they’ve already been announced. Since Tactics Ogre just got its Reborn remaster, FF Tactics HD can't be far behind, and references to some kind of Final Fantasy 9 animated show have also cropped up over the years. With a Final Fantasy 10 project recently joining the rumor pile, there may be even more Final Fantasy remakes out before the FF7 Remake trilogy is done.

There Hasn't Been This Much Final Fantasy In Two Decades

Having this much Final Fantasy on the way seems absurd, especially in the modern climate of games taking upwards of three years to develop. However, it seems Square Enix has worked something out to support its biggest global brand and has done so in a way that recalls its past. 2003's Final Fantasy Tactics Advance and Final Fantasy 10-2 were the last games released under Squaresoft before it merged with Enix, and capped off a decade and a half where a major Final Fantasy title came out almost every year. Modern Final Fantasy probably won't be able to keep the same pace up, but in some ways, it's currently outpacing its past self.

From 1987 to 2003, only 5 years passed without a full, new Final Fantasy title releasing, and those off years included games like the first SaGa title, Chrono Trigger, Xenogears, and Parasite Eve. Seeing Final Fantasy go from FF1 to FF11 in fifteen years is startling to look back on now, especially under a smaller company, but that was the pace of game development back then. It's nice to see Final Fantasy recapture some of that release consistency in the modern day, and hopefully the current lineup of games can please fans like their forebears did in the franchise's glory days.

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