The 1997 classic Final Fantasy Tactics always held a special place in the Final Fantasy community. It’s not surprising that Square Enix decided to work on a remaster Final Fantasy Tactics – The Ivalice Chronicles, which will launch September 30, 2025. There was just one problem. The company had lost the original source code.
How Did Square Lose the Source Code for Final Fantasy Tactics?
Back in the 1990s, not much thought was given towards preservation. Director Kazutoyo Maehiro admitted that the original source code was overwritten when the game was brought over to other countries outside of Japan. “We would basically take that data from the Japanese version and overwrite the English data on it, and we wanted to do another language. We would keep just stacking on top and overwriting and overwriting,” Maehiro explained.
Rebuilding a Game From the Bottom Up
Reconstructing Tactics was both a technical and philosophical project. For Maehiro, who worked as a junior developer on the original, this wasn’t a typical remaster. It was a career-defining project. Maehiro and his team had to recreate the game from scratch as they determined what counted as the “true” Tactics experience. Should they keep Cid Orlandeau overpowered as before? Or should they tone him down for balance?
In the end, they chose to make The Ivalice Chronicles as close to the original as possible. Cid remains powerful, but other characters have been boosted in strength. The remaster also adds modern updates like enhanced graphics, full voice acting, UI improvements, and new dialogue. Some PSP-era content was cut, but the developers insist those choices are refinements rather than omissions.
They played through its PlayStation 1 disc and studied its ports to mobile and the PSP. The team even turned to websites made by fans for data on key details. Maehiro even thanked the fan archivists for saving everything they could about the original game.
Why Fan Archivists are Important
Nearly 90% of video games made before 2010 are in danger of disappearing forever. Discs degrade in quality over time. There’s also a lot of controversy over publishers shutting down servers for online-only games. When the original source code vanishes, that game is effectively gone unless it’s been preserved. That’s where fans come in.
Fan-run wikis, forums, and databases hold everything from gameplay mechanics to untranslated dialogue scripts. They’re almost like time capsules for games that would otherwise vanish from history.
In the case of Tactics, these fan sites were useful for rebuilding mechanics, dialogue, and lore with accuracy. Their work helped make the remaster possible.
The Need for Better Preservation Methods
Games shape generations, inspire creators, and push technology forward. Yet unlike books, films, or music, not much effort is put into preserving them. Libraries and archives protect centuries of written and visual art. Meanwhile, grassroots archivists are on their own as they work to create ROMs and emulators. Groups like the Video Game History Foundation and the Internet Archive do everything they can. Much of the heavy lifting is done by regular players who care enough to save data.
The release of Final Fantasy Tactics – The Ivalice Chronicles shows what happens when fans and developers unintentionally team up to protect gaming history. Together, they brought back a game that might have stayed lost.
The next time a company loses its archives, fans may be the only ones standing between restoration and erasure. Because without them, the past disappears without a trace.
