We have an incredible rumor for a title that you may not even remember you were looking forward to.
In September 2021, a massive leak of the Nvidia GeForce Now service revealed that a remaster of Final Fantasy Tactics is in development. A leak of a consumer survey by Square Enix, and a retail listing subsequently added credence to this rumor. However, we hadn’t heard anything new since 2021.
Now, because of the nature of the rumor, it isn’t likely that this rumor was fake. Nvidia may not have all the details, but they knew enough about the Final Fantasy Tactics remaster that they were anticipating that it would work with their cloud streaming service.
Just to add spice to this rumor, Final Fantasy Tactics’ original director, Yasumi Matsuno, has been toying with fans with tweets that hint that a remaster is in development. The way Matsuno has been tweeting, he has officially denied that a remaster is in the works. But he has been tweeting about things that Square Enix could or could not be doing if that remaster was real.
But now we get to the latest word about this game. No less than Midori tweeted about Final Fantasy Tactics:
“The remastered version of Final Fantasy Tactics is still in development.
It was not a project at Square Enix that was cancelled.”
Earlier in the week, Midori also suggested that we should not expect much official information of this game, as well as of the Final Fantasy IX remake.
Final Fantasy Tactics was originally released in 1997 on the PlayStation, and has yet to be released to non-PlayStation consoles. It did receive sequels on Nintendo platforms, namely Final Fantasy Tactics Advance on Game Boy Advance, as well as Final Fantasy Tactics A-2 on the Nintendo DS. It also received an upgraded remake on the PlayStation Portable called Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions. This latter title did get rereleased to mobile platforms, but this is based on the PSP version.
And, of course, it goes without saying, but Final Fantasy Tactics is one of the most influential and significant games under Square Enix’s library. Aside from its sequels and remakes, the game influenced other strategy RPGs, made in and outside Japan.
Square Enix hopefully learned the lessons of their first generation of ports of their RPGs in producing this one. Given the company’s new focus, we would also expect this to be a full multiplatform release. And well it should, because Final Fantasy Tactics is one of those games that deserves to get as much attention from as many gamers as possible. Hopefully, even if we don’t see it soon, we do see it in this form.