During Xbox’s live stream for the Tokyo Game Show 2024, it officially announced that Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster, a collection of the original six mainline titles in the Final Fantasy series is indeed coming to the Xbox Platform and will be available starting today. unlike other games coming to the platform today it appears that the pixel remaster will not be part of the Game Pass library, at least at launch.
The Pixel Remaster collection began releasing one game at a time years ago for Steam and PC, however, it wasn’t until this year that the games were finally ported as a complete collection for the PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch. While historically, Square Enix has had a closer relationship with both publishers, it was still an odd decision to leave Xbox out of the announcement given that Microsoft has received the remasters of previous titles such as VII, VIII, and IX to name a few. In addition, this followed an announcement last year that Final Fantasy XIV would be ported to Xbox after a very long wait, with the promise the two companies would have a closer relationship in the future.
Square Enix has been looking at a Multi-platform strategy since Takashi Kiryu took the reigns back in 2023. This also follows the company stating that both Final Fantasy XVI and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth failed to meet expectations as platform exclusives to the PlayStation 5. While both games saw decreases in physical sales across Japan, with estimates that place overall sales as lower than previous titles like XV, it should be noted that Square Enix is routinely unhappy with sales so it is hard to put much stake in this.
Announced alongside Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster were two games in the Mana series, Trials of Mana and Legends of Mana. Visions of Mana, the latest in the mainline Mana series after a long absence released this year on all platforms, with it being a first for the Xbox console, and a rare day one coinciding from Square Enix. This being said, there has never been a better time to bring the older games to the platform and Game Pass as it begins to find a new audience.
Rumors have suggested that the Pixel Collection will not be the only game in the series to be finally coming to the Xbox as Final Fantasy XVI and the Final Fantasy VII Remake series were also suggested they would make an appearance but did not. This doesn’t mean they arent on the horizon as the Director of XVI, Yoshi-P, has talked about his desire to port the action RPG to the platform, with the title released on PC only recently.
For fans of Final Fantasy, I cannot recommend the Pixel Remaster enough. The original titles helped shape many of the recurring themes and elements the series would become famous for by the PlayStation classics and they still hold up. If you never played them before this is a perfect excuse to experience them for the first time, and if you have, you know why you should again.
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