After 28 long years, Final Fantasy Tactics is finally getting the remaster it (hopefully) deserves when The Ivalice Chronicles launches on Switch on 30th September 2025.
According to director Kazutoyo Maehiro, however, development on the upcoming remaster wasn’t entirely smooth-sailing thanks to one key issue: the original source code was essentially lost. Speaking at a panel during PAX West (thanks, Popverse), Maehiro explained that when the original PS1 title was released in various regions outside of Japan, the original code was overwritten multiple times.
“We would basically take that data from the Japanese version and overwrite the English data on it, and when we wanted to do another language, we would keep just stacking on top and overwriting and overwriting.”
So to try and find the original source code, the developers had to mine their way through the various versions and essentially pick out bits that they thought were tied to the original. In addition, the team even relied on fan websites to provide some of the necessary data, with Maehiro stating that they “do such a good job of keeping all of that up to date”.
“So we kind of went on a journey to find the original version, and we were using whatever resources we had available to us, so all those different versions would be analysing what was there to try to find what we felt was the original.
“On top of that, we actually had to go to different websites made by fans and look for data there, because we know you guys do such a good job of keeping all of that up to date.”
Hey, whatever works, right? There have been multiple instances in which games’ sources codes have been lost or unpreserved, perhaps most notably when Konami attempted to revive Silent Hill 2 and 3 as HD ports for the Xbox 360 and PS3. Developer Hijinx Studios had to work with an incomplete code, thus resulting in development issues and glaring technical oversights in the final product.
So it’s good that Square Enix has actually gone out of its way to ensure it could work with the most authentic, original source code when developing The Ivalice Chronicles. Hopefully it will result in a faithful homage to the PS1 title, and we can’t wait to check it out properly later this month.
Maehiro has also implied that more remasters and sequels could be looked at should The Ivalice Chronicles perform well at launch.
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