Final Fantasy 9 Steam Update Apparently Removed The Entire Game

Game updates can involve removing content instead of only adding them. In the case of Final Fantasy IX‘s Steam version, however, things leaned a bit too far towards the former.

Yesterday, a Steam update for the JRPG basically deleted the game for everyone. In the Steam forums, users reported that the game no longer started, and those that tried to download it said that they ended up with a 0kb download. However, those who backed up their game files were able to overcome the issue, it seems.

There are no official patch notes, but SteamDB has some unofficial patch notes that provide the answer to this strange situation. It seems that the update ended up removing a ton of stuff, including level data, various streaming assets, and the steam_api.dll file. It’s a long list.

While it was most likely just an unintentional mistake on Square Enix’s part, deleting an entire game is quite the move. Fortunately, users say that a new download has brought Final Fantasy IX back into existence on Steam.

On the downside, some players have found issues like duplicated names or missing save files, and one noted that the new update restored a beta version of the game instead of the full release. Dang it, Square Enix.

On a related note, check out our Final Fantasy features below. Is FF9 in any one of them? You’ll have to find out for yourself.