Publisher Square Enix has announced that its beloved JRPG anthology series has passed a major milestone as more than 200 million Final Fantasies have been sold over the last 37 years.
“The Final Fantasy series has now sold over 200 million copies across the globe,” the publisher announced today, “Wherever you joined us on our adventures, thank you.” Those sales account for a whopping 16 mainline games (22 if you include numbered sequels and the recent FF7 remakes), alongside countless mobile spin-offs, strategy pivots, orchestral rhythm tappers, fighting game experiments, and much more.
Squeenix’s recent Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster “series” has also moved more than five million copies after receiving staggered multiplatform ports across PC, mobile, PS4, Nintendo Switch, and Xbox. The Pixel Remaster bundle includes the series’ first six classic outings with a much shinier coat of pixels slapped on top, though each game is also available to buy individually, so I’d be curious to see how those sales were split. I’d guess some (FF4 and FF6) probably fared better than others (sorry, FF2).
To coincide with the major milestone, the Pixel Remasters got a new patch addressing minor bugs across all platforms. Final Fantasy 3 now also has a handy accessibility feature allowing you to adjust the “rate that character job level increases” if you’d like to cut down on the grinding.
Pixel Remaster’s success is so nice to see because turn-based, non-Pokemon JRPGs were almost an endangered subgenre two console generations ago. Now, the collection is seemingly a bigger hit than the spectacle-stuffed Final Fantasy 16, which reportedly has only managed to sell 3.5 million copies. Maybe that multiplatform strategy is finally bearing fruit.
Either way, Final Fantasy’s updated numbers puts it in very exclusive company, as only the likes of Mario, Pokemon, FIFA, Call of Duty, and a few others can boast of such success.
For now, why not reminisce with the very best Final Fantasy games of all time?