When Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles launches later this year, content from the War of the Lions version will not be included. Square Enix has already explained the reason.
The War of the Lions arrived on PSP in 2007. It includes substantial additional content such as new characters and jobs, new pre-rendered cutscenes, and multiplayer features. Unfortunately, these elements won’t be present in The Ivalice Chronicles.
Director Kazutoyo Maehiro didn’t explicitly state why Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles is omitting War of the Lions content. In an official interview (via Nintendo Everything), he noted:
I and other members of this development team weren’t directly involved in War of the Lions, but I believe that game’s content fully satisfied player expectations at the time.
However, revisiting things nearly 30 years later during this game’s creation, we asked ourselves what our team – the creators of the original Final Fantasy Tactics – could do to introduce it to a new generation of players.
This reflection led us to conclude that the most appropriate approach was respecting the original game experience and recreating it as faithfully as possible.
Maehiro added that the team “considered introducing new jobs, abilities, and characters – including those featured in War of the Lions.” Ultimately, however, Square Enix felt Final Fantasy Tactics “is an exceptionally complete game both in design and narrative,” arguing that alterations “would only undermine the experience for both original fans and newcomers.”
Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles will release on September 30 for PS4, PS5, Xbox Series, Switch, Switch 2, and PC.
