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How SquareEnix lost the source code to Final Fantasy Tactics, and how they used online fan content to bring it back to life for the 2025 remake

If you're rejoicing because of Final Fantasy Tactics - The Ivalice Chronicles's release next month, you have other Final Fantasy fans to thank

www.thepopverse.com

At a panel at PAX West 2025, director Kazutoyo Maehiro explained that the reason why Square Enix no longer had the original source code for Final Fantasy Tactics boiled down to how that original source code was overwritten when the game was brought to audiences 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 began.

"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 analyzing 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."

I can't think of a more beautiful way for such a beloved game to be reintroduced to a new generation of gamers.

 

[Valonquar]

Same thing happened with Panzer Dragoon RPG, though I believe they eventually found that at someone's house. So sad.

 

[Evil Calvin]

...and Sega lost the source code for Panzer Dragoon Saga. How does this even happen with huge companies like Square and Sega?

 

[Power Pro]

...and Sega lost the source code for Panzer Dragoon Saga. How does this even happen with huge companies like Square and Sega?

Apparently in Japan, it was standard procedure until around the mid 2000s, that they just got rid of most of what they had. Not very forward thinking.

 

[Guilty_AI]

And this is why you don't go around terrorizing fan projects and rom sites

 

[Evil Calvin]

Apparently in Japan, it was standard procedure until around the mid 2000s, that they just got rid of most of what they had. Not very forward thinking.

Geez......that's unfortunate.

 

[Dr_Ifto]

They lost Toy Story 2 as well, but a lady had a copy at her house, which saved like 8 months of render time

 

[Azelover]

...and Sega lost the source code for Panzer Dragoon Saga. How does this even happen with huge companies like Square and Sega?

That's what I came here to say... you can get the code back this way? WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU WAITING FOR SEGA?!?!?!?!?!

 

[asdasdasdbb]

Uh so how did they do WOTL then?

 

[Dazraell]

Apparently in Japan, it was standard procedure until around the mid 2000s, that they just got rid of most of what they had. Not very forward thinking.

It's not even Japan, some western companies did this too. For example, Interplay also had a higher-up policy requiring developers to terminate source codes for their games and scrapping everything someone did for the game when they were leaving the company. Tim Cain even lamented once that due to this bullshit Fallout 1 and Fallout 2 source code was most likely lost as they were all ordered to delete everything they had under threat of legal actions. Luckily there was one of the co-founders who saved the day by secretly making snapshots of everything and preserving all source codes behind everyone else's back so those weren't lost

 

[SEGAvangelist]

Same thing happened with Panzer Dragoon RPG, though I believe they eventually found that at someone's house. So sad.

Wait... they found it? SEGA, WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?!?

 

[Danjin44]

It's not even Japan, some western companies did this too. For example, Interplay also had a higher-up policy requiring developers to terminate source codes for their games and scrapping everything someone did for the game when they were leaving the company. Tim Cain even lamented once that due to this bullshit Fallout 1 and Fallout 2 source code was most likely lost as they were all ordered to delete everything they had under threat of legal actions. Luckily there was one of the co-founders who saved the day by secretly making snapshots of everything and preserving all source codes behind everyone else's back so those weren't lost

I'm no expert on this but I think back then there was no DLCs so for them there was no reason keep the original source around.

 

[diffusionx]

...and Sega lost the source code for Panzer Dragoon Saga. How does this even happen with huge companies like Square and Sega?

try to find something from the 1990s at your company?

Uh so how did they do WOTL then?

did you read the article? seems pretty obvious.

WOTL was what they had and they wanted to go back. Like we all do.

 

[Deerock71]

 

[Maitre_Piccolo]

I'm no expert on this but I think back then there was no DLCs so for them there was no reason keep the original source around.

I mean DLC or not there are always more reasons to preserve source code than not to. Losing source code is basically never something people do intentionally, it's just the consequence of poor data management.

 

[Dazraell]

I'm no expert on this but I think back then there was no DLCs so for them there was no reason keep the original source around.

If we talk strictly about PC (as that was Interplay's primary platform until their final years when they switched to consoles) there were potential expansions and the like, but yeah, they probably had "when you finish it you just move on to another thing" mentality. Safe to assume companies didn't thought those source codes might be useful in the future to make these games playable on future hardware and the like

 

[T8SC]

try to find something from the 1990s at your company?

If it was the blueprint of something created by the company, it would be stored on a long term backup solution, like LTO Ultrium tapes.

If it was Janet's office supplies spreadsheet from 1994, that'd probably be lost.

 

[asdasdasdbb]

did you read the article? seems pretty obvious.

WOTL was what they had and they wanted to go back. Like we all do.

Maybe they should have stuck with WOTL then.

 

[Evil Calvin]

try to find something from the 1990s at your company?



did you read the article? seems pretty obvious.

WOTL was what they had and they wanted to go back. Like we all do.

Dude....you spend millions on a 3rd sequel to a popular game and you lose the source code? Different than looking for some old paperwork at my old company.

 

[ReBurn]

It's probably in the same place as my sunglasses

 

[Hudo]

There is an unconfirmed rumor that EA lost the source code to Command & Conquer Tiberian Sun and Red Alert 2 when they were shutting down Westwood and backup tapes got thrown away into garbage containers. However, a similar rumor also said this about the source code of Command & Conquer 1 and Red Alert 1, and that rumor didn't turn out to be true.

 

[Zacfoldor]

Maybe they should have stuck with WOTL then.

 

[Oberstein]

> Square Enix: "Thanks to the fans, you preserved the FFT source code better than we did ♥"

> Square Enix the next day: "Illegal ROM detected, see you in court."

 

[near]

Maehiro discussed this in an interview back in June. A little more detail for those interested:

There were a number of major challenges, but all of them stemmed from the fact that the master data and source code from the original game no longer existed.

This isn't to say that they were mishandled or poorly managed or anything like that - keeping that kind of data wasn't a normal thing to do at the time.

In those days, we didn't have the sort of robust resource-management tools that exist today, and on top of that, the production workflow for the game was such that the Japanese version was produced first, and then we would create localized versions by overwriting the data with that of other languages, including English.

There was also no such thing as online patches or updates, so unless there was any major reason to do something different, once you'd made the game, that was it.

So, I think it's fair to say that developing this game without any master data or source code was the biggest challenge.

How did you solve that problem?

Put simply: by sheer force (laughs).

We analyzed a number of existing versions of the game and reconstructed the programming of the original, but there were also times where we played the original game and worked it out by feel alone...

The entire process was the result of cumulative hard work - on the one hand working to implement new features, while behind the scenes our work was similar to porting an old arcade game to the NES.

The staff who worked on this game were real lifesavers. I can't thank them enough.

SQUARE ENIX | The Official SQUARE ENIX Website

Welcome to the official SQUARE ENIX website. Find all the latest news and updates about your favourite games and upcoming releases.

www.square-enix-games.com

 

[Arsic]

lol. Lmao even.

 

[mhirano]

This is literal game preservation (by the fans)

 

[64gigabyteram]

this shit prevented us KH fans from getting a 358/2 days PS2 remake. They lost the source code to KH1 for the remasters so all the budget meant to remake 358/2 days was spent on remaking KH1 instead.

Infuriating when companies do this to their precious work. Also why I'm eternally grateful for the recent 2020s trend of decompilation and recompilation of games .

 

[poodaddy]

Pitiful of Squaresoft era Square to have no standard procedures to keep track of source code. I mean.....just keep overwriting it? This is like baby's first fan game shit.

Man, things were pretty different before repo's were commonly used for development huh?

 

[Deerock71]

Squeenix: We lost the Final Fantasy Tactics code.

EA:

 

[falling into hell]

Didn't NASA also loose some moon landing footage? I wish companies would be more careful with their shit.

 

[Grildon Tundy]

Didn't NASA also loose some moon landing footage? I wish companies would be more careful with their shit.

Some incompetence is so egregious one wonders if it's intentional.

 

[Feather049]

this shit prevented us KH fans from getting a 358/2 days PS2 remake. They lost the source code to KH1 for the remasters so all the budget meant to remake 358/2 days was spent on remaking KH1 instead.

Infuriating when companies do this to their precious work. Also why I'm eternally grateful for the recent 2020s trend of decompilation and recompilation of games .

It really makes you think how mess-ups like these have costed us all types of potential releases. I can only imagine the stuff that might have been secretively gone due to situations like these, and we'll never.

If I remember correctly, there was an accident with one of the Toy Story movies where a huge amount of work got accidentally deleted. Luckily they had some of the stuff backed up, but just imagine if they didn't. Backing up stuff is seriously important, and it's crazy many companies don't protect their data enough.

 

[Hudo]

Some incompetence is so egregious one wonders if it's intentional.

One of the iPhone prototypes leaked because some dude forgot it in a bar.

 

[ReyBrujo]

It's unthinkable today but back in time people didn't really care about the code in terms of preservation. Where I work people were so tired of working with an old codebase from 1990 written in C++ that they literally lost it, they never made backups and broke the repository (Sourceforge and CVS, it was pretty easy actually) to explain to management why a new version should be made in a new language from scratch.

In this case, though, the way they explain doesn't imply they lost the source code but the "data" section of it, which would mean texts and some graphics. That's like the only thing you overwrite from version to version, and makes sense checking for old roms or screenshots to get the original Japanese text if that was no longer available.