Next is Relooted on February 10th, followed by BlazBlue Entropy Effect X on February 12th, both for Ultimate and PC tiers. The latter marks the rogue-lite action side-scroller’s debut on consoles, bringing a new character, biome, and story mode.

But wait, there’s more. On the same day, both subscriber tiers can check out Roadside Research, where up to four players control aliens running a gas station, Starsand Island, an early access farming game with an anime aesthetic. February 13th sees Henry coming to visit, specifically Henry of Skalitz, as Kingdom Come: Deliverance becomes available for Ultimate, Premium and PC tiers.

If that’s not enough open-world goodness, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora also joins the service on February 17th. Obsidian’s action RPG Avowed will become available for Premium subscribers on the same day. Fortunately, there’s only one game leaving the service on February 15th – Madden NFL 24 – but considering Madden NFL 26’s arrival, it’s not the biggest loss.

RoadCraft and Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound are also coming to the same tiers tomorrow, making for an already packed week. However, January 27th sees the arrival of The Talos Principle 2 for PC and Xbox Series X/S, followed by Anno: Mutationem and Drop Duchy on January 28th. All three titles will be available for Ultimate, PC and Premium subscribers.

On January 29th, you can look forward to another heavy hitter – MySims: Cozy Bundle. Oh, and a little something called Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2, one of the best third-person shooters available. Truly the Barbenheimer of our times.

February 2nd sees the addition of Indika for Ultimate and PC Game Pass, followed by Final Fantasy 2 on February 3rd. The latter follows the arrival of the first game in Squaresoft’s legendary series, so at this rate, we can probably experience Final Fantasy 16 by next year.

Unfortunately, as with every new Game Pass wave, some titles are being removed from the service’s library. From January 31st, you’ll no longer have access to the following:

• Shady Part of Me (Cloud, PC, and Console)
• Cataclismo (PC)
• Starbound (Cloud, PC, and Console)
• Lonely Mountains Snow Riders (Cloud, PC, and Console)
• Paw Patrol World (Cloud, PC, and Console)
• Citizen Sleeper 2 Starward Vector (Cloud, PC, and Console)
• Orcs Must Die! Deathtrap (Cloud, PC, and Console)

Final Fantasy 4, Final Fantasy 5 and Final Fantasy 6 will arrive later this year for both platforms. Though previous ports have been rather hit or miss, the Pixel Remaster titles feature fully remastered sprites by veteran artist Kazuko Shibuya. The soundtrack has also been rearranged by Nobuo Uematsu, the original composer for the titles.

In terms of gameplay features, a modernized UI and auto-battle options have been added to get through some of the more tedious fights. There’s also an illustration gallery, music player and Bestiary. With previous versions of the ports being pulled from Steam, these are now the only ways to experience the classic RPGs on PC. Stay tuned for more details on the other titles in the meantime.

The trio discussed the development of each game and the stories behind them. It was also confirmed that each title’s pixel art characters have been fully remastered courtesy of pixel artist Kazuko Shibuya, a veteran who’s been working on the franchise since Final Fantasy 1. The mention of “pixel art characters” seems to indicate that the backgrounds won’t be in the same style but that’s just conjecture.

A new trailer was revealed at the end of the presentation so expect that to go live sometime soon. Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster includes re-releases of Final Fantasy 1 to 6 with each title being available individually and in a complete bundle. Stay tuned for more details in the meantime.

Though Square Enix didn’t outright confirm the same, Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster could take an HD-2D route in terms of their visuals. This was seen in the recently announced Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake and series creator Yuji Horii has said that he’d like to see similar remakes for Dragon Quest 1 and 2. Again, it’s all speculation as to whether Final Fantasy 1 to 6 are indeed being remastered in this way.

Square Enix will also be revisiting Final Fantasy 1’s world but from a different perspective in Stranger of Paradise Final Fantasy Origin. Developed by Team Ninja, the action hack and slash title is out in 2022 for Xbox Series X/S, PS5, Xbox One, PS4 and PC with a demo coming soon to PS5. Stay tuned for more details on that in the coming months as well.

One of those classics will be getting a remake very soon (or, well, the first part of a remake, at any rate), when Final Fantasy 7 Remake launches on April 10, and in the lead-up to that, we (and millions of others) have been looking back on the highs and lows of the series over the years. In this feature, we’ll be taking a look at all the mainline numbered Final Fantasy games, and ranking them from worst to best.

So without further ado, let’s get started.

#16. FINAL FANTASY 14 (ORIGINAL RELEASE)

Final Fantasy 14 came at a time when the series as a whole was perhaps in the worst shape of its life. Final Fantasy 13 had been come across as something of a disappointment in 2009, and the fact that FF14 was an MMORPG meant that quite a few automatically lost interest as well. It didn’t help that when the game launched, it was utter crap (to put it mildly). Thanks to being terribly unpolished, being ridden with performance issues, featuring an interface that was a nightmare to navigate, and core interaction, exploration, and combat mechanics that were an absolute chore, the original Final Fantasy 14 was perhaps the biggest misstep this series ever made. Of course, Square Enix did manage to turn things around, to the extent that Final Fantasy 14 as we know it today is probably one of the best games in the series- but we’ll get to that soon enough.

It looks like Final Fantasy 15, the newest entry in the long running RPG saga, and one that managed to knock it out of the park against all the odds being stacked against it, will be coming to PC after all. This should not come as a shock to anybody, given that the game’s developers had stated a desire to do just that, but the PC port of the game could be releasing in 2018, according to a new rumor by VG Leaks.

Final Fantasy 15 won’t be the only Final Fantasy hitting the PC around that time, either- apparently, the Final Fantasy 7 Remake will also be launching on PC around that time, as will Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy II, Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age and Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lion– a veritable onslaught of old school Square Enix goodness, right there.

Final Fantasy 1 and 2 have aged terribly, so I can’t speak for those- but as for the other games, those are all great, and they absolutely deserve to be played by even more people than have played them already. I desperately hope this rumor is true.