A Final Fantasy 9 project that was seemingly shelved earlier this year is reportedly back on schedule and will be ready to release in just a few years, but it’s not the remake a lot of fans have been hoping for. Instead, fans will be getting an anime adaptation of Final Fantasy 9, with the short series targeting 2028 for its release.
The Final Fantasy series has been bringing high-fantasy RPG adventures to players around the world since the first game’s release in 1987, but there have been a number of Final Fantasy anime show and movie releases spread out across the past 31 years. Most of these have been OVAs, but the franchise has also spawned a single-season anime show and a movie in the past, and with a recent announcement, another series seems to have been saved from the scrap heap.
Square Enix Adds Fuel to the Final Fantasy 9 Remake Rumor Fire
Square Enix updates its official website commemorating the 25th anniversary of Final Fantasy 9, and fans think it’s a hint of big things to come.
Final Fantasy 9 is Getting an Anime Adaptation
Over the summer, Final Fantasy 9 celebrated its 25th anniversary, having first released in Japan on the original PlayStation console on July 7, 2000. Part of that celebration included mention of an upcoming animated series based on the game, which had been officially announced by Cyber Group Studios way back in 2021. However, plans for that series seemed tenuous well before the game’s 25th anniversary, as the France-based animated television producer and distributor had entered a legal filing for financial insolvency in 2024, and a judge had ordered its assets liquidated in April 2025, seemingly putting the project one the shelf before it had a chance to be released.
Now, reasons for the animated series’ inclusion in the celebration seem a little clearer, thanks to a report from French television and film industry publication Ecran Total. According to that report, the series is back on track with a projected 2028 release window, but it will be completed under the wing of Euro Visual, a company best known for its work on French animated children’s series Atout 5 and the second and third seasons of The Bellflower Bunnies. Like Euro Visual’s other notable works, the Final Fantasy 9 project will be a children’s animated series targeting the 6 to 13 age demographic, which is appropriate, considering the ninth installment in the RPG series’ gentler and more cartoonish tone compared to the other games that surround it in the timeline. The report also states that the series is planned for 13 episodes, each with 22-minute run times, and it will be presented in a 2D format.
