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Games take a long time to make, something that is especially true when you’re a company the size of Square Enix. There are a lot of moving parts that need to get up to speed to make a game like the Final Fantasy Tactics remake happen, even if the company hadn't lost the original files for the game. In fact, the conversation around remaking the classic tactical RPG happened back when some of the developers of Final Fantasy Tactics replayed the game when it had a crossover with Final Fantasy XIV.

“The trust start of the project does actually start quite a few years ago,” Kazutoyo Maehiro, the director of Final Fantasy Tactics – The Ivalice Chronicles, explained to me when I spoke to him at PAX West. “So, you might be aware, a few years ago, Final Fantasy XIV, our MMORPG, had some crossover content now called Return to Ivalice, which had content from a couple of different games within the world of Ivalice… So, during the time that content was coming out, [Hiroshi Minagawa and I] actually had the chance to play through the original Final Fantasy Tactics as part of a live stream that was celebrating the crossover content."

"And so when we were playing the original Final Fantasy Tactics, we all affirmed and realized how great the game was. And I think the thought from us was, ‘Hey, we’d really like to bring this to modern consoles.’ And from there, we just went further and further into creating it into an official project.”

For reference, the Return to Ivalice event in Final Fantasy XIV took place back in 2017, which means it was around eight years between the idea of remaking Final Fantasy Tactics and actually seeing Final Fantasy Tactics – The Ivalice Chronicles hit our shelves. 

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