Xbox Game Pass Adds One of the Great NES Games 39 Years After Its Original Release

39 years after its original release, one of the great NES games, which is also one of the great RPGs of the late 1980s, is available for free for Xbox One, Xbox Series S, and Xbox Series X users with a subscription to Xbox Game Pass. Better yet, unlike many Xbox Game Pass games, it is not limited to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, but can also be enjoyed with a PC Game Pass subscription as well as a Game Pass Premium subscription. The only tier it is not available through is the standard tier, Xbox Game Pass Essential, which is essentially what Xbox Live Gold used to be.

The game in question is a Square Enix game, but not any Square Enix game, but the first-ever game in its most important series. In other words, the first and original Final Fantasy game is now available via Xbox Game Pass as part of the first wave of January 2026 Xbox Game Pass games. How long it is going to be available via the Microsoft subscription service remains to be seen, but as long as it is available via Game Pass, subscribers can also purchase it at a 20% discount. Typically, when games are added to Xbox Game Pass, it is for 12 or 24 months.

A Milestone RPG From Square Enix

Final Fantasy as a series is Square Enix’s primary and most important series, and one of the most important series in gaming. To this end, it is not just one of the all-time great RPG series in gaming, but one of the all-time great series in gaming history across any genre. At the time of its release, the original Final Fantasy earned good, but not great, reviews. To this end, it is far from the best game in the series, and it shows its age in 2026; however, it also helped popularize the RPG genre.

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When it was originally released in 1987, Final Fantasy was only available in Japan, and this did not change until 1990. It was also an NES exclusive when it was originally released, and in North America and Europe, this did not change until 2003, when it was brought to the PS1.

Not in its Original Form

It is worth noting that this is not the original Final Fantasy in all its NES glory, but the 2021 Pixel Remaster version that doesn’t change the game fundamentally, but does it give a facelift with modernity in mind.

All of that said, and as always, feel free to leave a comment or two letting us know what you think, or join the conversation over on the ComicBook Forum.