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The developers behind FINAL FANTASY TACTICS – The Ivalice Chronicles has shared their hopes for bringing back other games in the Tactics series, while also discussing improvements made to fan-favorite character Cloud. In a recent interview with Inverse, director Kazutoyo Maehiro revealed that Cloud Strife has received significant upgrades in The Ivalice Chronicles. The Final Fantasy VII hero was notoriously difficult to use in the original game, arriving very late at level one without his signature Materia Blade.
“With The Ivalice Chronicles, we’ve made it so that his stats are adjusted a little bit,” Maehiro explained. “On top of that, he will come equipped with the Materia Blade when he joins your party initially.”
Cloud now joins the party at the same timing as the War of the Lions version, making him much more useful. He also features full voice acting alongside other characters in the game. Both Maehiro and art director Hiroshi Minagawa expressed strong interest in reviving Final Fantasy Tactics Advance and Tactics A2, which remain trapped on their original Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS systems.
“If The Ivalice Chronicles can do well, that’s good for the fans, they can enjoy it,” Maehiro said. “But, at the same time, it shows the business viability of the strategy RPG genre. So that could potentially open the door for doing something with Final Fantasy Tactics Advance or A2, or maybe even sequels and new titles as well.”
The director noted that while strategy RPGs might seem like a niche genre, they have a dedicated fanbase who really enjoy the tactical gameplay once they get into it.
The Ivalice Chronicles introduces three difficulty settings to make the game more accessible. The casual “Squire” difficulty allows players to enjoy the story without major hurdles, while “Tactician” difficulty challenges veteran strategy RPG players. The team didn’t make major changes to infamous difficult battles like Dorter City or the Wiegraf boss fight. Instead, they added features like battle retry options and the ability to back out to the world map during consecutive battles.
FINAL FANTASY TACTICS – The Ivalice Chronicles includes both enhanced and classic modes. The enhanced version features fully voiced dialogue in English and Japanese, updated visuals, and quality-of-life improvements. The classic mode preserves the original 1997 look while including the War of the Lions script and helpful features like auto-save. Final Fantasy Tactics – The Ivalice Chronicles releases September 30, 2025 for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, and PC via Steam.
