Square Enix’s first HD-2D Final Fantasy arrives October 22, 2026. The trailers are beautiful. The pedigree is complicated. The developer’s track record is a graveyard of interesting ideas with flawed execution. Before you pre-order, you should know exactly who is making this game and what has gone wrong before.
On October 22, 2026, Square Enix will release Final Fantasy Resonance, the first HD-2D entry in the most storied RPG franchise in video game history. It is a gorgeous-looking game. The pixel-art characters shimmer against lush 3D environments. The Visions system promises strategic depth. The return of classic Final Fantasy touchstones, chocobos, espers, and crystals, is calculated to trigger every nostalgic reflex a fan has. And the pre-release demo, dropped in early September, is explicitly designed to calm nerves that the director admits existed.
But here is the thing about nerves. They usually exist for a reason.
Final Fantasy Resonance is being developed by LANCARSE, a Tokyo studio with a 22-year history that reads less like a pedigree and more like a cautionary tale. They have made games with fascinating mechanics, memorable concepts, and genuine ambition. They have also made games that were grindy, repetitive, technically uneven, and critically panned. Their best-known original title, Monark, sits at a 66 on Metacritic. Their Square Enix collaboration, The DioField Chronicle, was described by multiple outlets as a game “sent to die.” And the project they are now entrusted with is not just another RPG. It is a Final Fantasy game, carrying the weight of a franchise that has defined the genre for nearly four decades.
This is not a review. The game is not out yet. This is a background check on the people building your next potential disappointment, and a warning based on a pattern that Square Enix has repeated often enough that it is no longer a coincidence.
What is Final Fantasy Resonance, and why does it matter?
Final Fantasy Resonance is the first Final Fantasy game built in the HD-2D visual style that Square Enix pioneered with Octopath Traveler. It combines classic pixel-art sprites with fully 3D environments, modern lighting, depth-of-field effects, and a diorama-like presentation that makes every screen look like a moving painting. The game is coming to Nintendo Switch 2, Switch, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC. It is, by any measure, a major release.
The game is based on Final Fantasy Brave Exvius, a mobile gacha RPG that launched in 2015 and has accumulated years of story, characters, and systems. Producer Keisuke Nakashima has said that Brave Exvius was “too good to become unplayable,” referring to the inevitable server shutdown that would eventually erase a mobile game with a devoted fanbase. Resonance is the console resurrection: a reworked story, a new world map, a strategic turn-based battle system, and what Square Enix promises is enough change to feel like a new game rather than a port.
We truly feel this demo will dispel any kinds of uncertainty or concerns that people may have had.
— Keisuke Nakashima, Producer, Final Fantasy Resonance, in an interview with RPG Site, September 2026That quote is revealing. Nakashima is not saying there was never anything to worry about. He is saying the demo will fix the worry. The fact that he felt the need to say it at all tells you something about the atmosphere surrounding this launch. When a director of a major franchise title feels compelled to reassure fans that the demo will “dispel uncertainty,” it means the uncertainty was real, vocal, and widespread enough to require a response.
The game features a Visions system that lets players summon classic Final Fantasy characters as spectral allies, 26 Visions in total, each needing to be balanced against the main party. It has espers to collect, a world map to explore, and completionist elements layered over the core campaign. It is, in other words, a systems-heavy RPG from a developer whose history with systems-heavy RPGs is not reassuring.
LANCARSE: a studio with more ambition than execution
LANCARSE was founded in June 2004 in Shinjuku, Tokyo. For their first decade, they were largely a support studio, contributing to titles like Etrian Odyssey, Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey, and various handheld projects. They knew RPGs. They understood dungeon crawling, turn-based combat, and the rhythms of Japanese game design. What they had not yet proven was whether they could lead development on a major original title and stick the landing.
Their first significant original game was Lost Dimension, released in 2014 for PlayStation 3 and Vita. It was a tactical RPG with a novel twist: party members might be traitors, and the player had to identify them before they sabotaged the mission. The concept was genuinely interesting. The execution was decent but unspectacular. It found a cult audience, sold modestly, and established a pattern that would define LANCARSE’s career: great hook, okay game, forgotten within a year.
Monark: the ex-SMT team’s big swing and miss
In 2021, LANCARSE released Monark, a dark schoolyard JRPG developed by former Shin Megami Tensei staff including Kazunari Suzuki, a veteran of the Megami Tensei franchise. The pedigree was impeccable. The marketing leaned hard on the SMT connection. And the result was a 66 Metascore on PlayStation 5, with 74% of critic reviews marked as “mixed” rather than positive.
The reviews tell a consistent story. IGN praised the combat as “superb” and “laden with depth” but criticized the “disjointed story, static puzzles, and repetitive level design.” PlayStation Universe said it had “plenty of great ideas held back by brutal grinding and combat.” GamingBolt called it a game that “fails to do justice to its several interesting ideas, with grindy combat and its repetitive structure letting the entire experience down.” RPG Site, one of the more sympathetic outlets, still noted that the game contained deeply unsettling themes handled without the care they required.
Monark Review Consensus
- Combat system genuinely interesting and strategically deep
- Grinding requirements brutal and poorly paced
- Level design repetitive and visually monotonous
- Story ambitious but disjointed in execution
- Overall: “great ideas, flawed delivery” across nearly every major outlet
The pattern in those reviews is the pattern that should worry Final Fantasy fans. LANCARSE can design interesting combat. They can attract talented veterans. They can come up with concepts that sound compelling on paper. What they have not consistently demonstrated is the ability to build a complete, polished, well-paced RPG that does not collapse under the weight of its own systems. Monark’s grinding was not a minor issue. It was the issue that multiple reviewers identified as the thing that “let the entire experience down.” When a studio’s signature problem is making players do too much tedious work to enjoy the good parts, handing them a game with 26 summonable Visions, espers, and completionist elements is not obviously a solution.
The DioField Chronicle: Square Enix’s first experiment with LANCARSE
In 2022, LANCARSE collaborated with Square Enix on The DioField Chronicle, a real-time strategy RPG that tried to blend Command & Conquer-style tactics with anime storytelling. It was, by most accounts, a commercial disappointment and a critical mediocrity. GameSpot called it “a protracted series of tactical battles” that “falls into an early routine from which it is reluctant to deviate.” Metro’s review headline was brutal: “The best strategy is not to play.” VG247 said it felt like it had been “sent to die as some mega-niche undertaking.”
The DioField Chronicle is relevant to Final Fantasy Resonance for two reasons. First, it is the only prior collaboration between LANCARSE and Square Enix, and it did not go well. Second, it demonstrates what happens when LANCARSE is asked to build a systems-heavy game with a real-time component. The combat was frequently praised as innovative. The surrounding game, the story, the character development, the mission structure, was criticized as thin, repetitive, and underdeveloped. Square Enix’s response to this was apparently not to find a different co-developer. It was to give LANCARSE a bigger franchise.
Since DioField, LANCARSE has shipped Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation – Quest of Memories (2024), WiZmans World Re;Try (2024), and Cardfight!! Vanguard Dear Days 2 (2025). None have been breakout hits. None have established LANCARSE as a studio that has turned a corner. They remain, in 2026, what they have been for most of their existence: a capable support developer and an uneven lead developer, now entrusted with one of the most important releases in Square Enix’s calendar.
Square Enix’s trailer curse: when the sizzle outlasts the steak
Square Enix does not have a quality problem. They have a delivery problem. When their games work, they are among the best in the industry. Final Fantasy XIV’s redemption is legendary. Octopath Traveler and Triangle Strategy proved HD-2D is a viable and beautiful aesthetic. But when Square Enix’s games fail, they fail in a very specific way: the marketing is immaculate, the trailers are gorgeous, and the final product arrives half-baked.
Forspoken: the $100 million cautionary tale
In January 2023, Square Enix released Forspoken, an open-world action RPG from Luminous Productions. The trailers had been stunning. The magic parkour looked fluid. The world seemed vast. The lead-up was polished, professional, and exciting. Then the game launched.
Square Enix’s own president, Yosuke Matsuda, described the reception as “challenging” and sales as “lacklustre” in a February 2023 financial briefing. That is corporate speak for “this was a disaster.” The Metacritic score settled in the high 60s. The PC port was a mess. The writing was widely mocked. And perhaps most tellingly, Square Enix’s response to the failure was to disband Luminous Productions entirely and absorb the staff back into the parent company.
The Forspoken story gets worse the closer you look. Kotaku revealed that the game’s release trailer used “bogus accolades,” lifting misleading quotes and presenting them as critical praise. PC Gamer called the PC port “another fine Square Enix mess.” Exputer documented how Square Enix’s strategy to control the review narrative backfired massively, with restrictive embargos and selective access creating more suspicion than they prevented. The game was not just bad. It was badly managed, badly marketed with dishonesty, and badly handled in the aftermath.
Babylon’s Fall: the live service that lived for a year
If Forspoken was a slow-motion car crash, Babylon’s Fall was a plane crash in real time. Released in March 2022 as a live-service action RPG developed by PlatinumGames and published by Square Enix, it was dead on arrival. VGC called it “a dull and cynical service game.” Tom’s Guide called it “the worst game I’ve played in years” and “an ugly, clunky, incomprehensible mess.” The player count on Steam dropped to effectively zero within weeks. Square Enix shut down the servers in February 2023, less than a year after launch.
PlatinumGames’ CEO, Kenichi Sato, later apologized, saying “We’re not very happy” and acknowledging the game had caused “disappointment, perhaps maybe even anger, to our dedicated fans and players.” The apology was nice. It did not bring back the development budget or the player trust. Babylon’s Fall is what happens when a publisher chases a trend, live-service monetization, without understanding what makes games like that work. It is also what happens when beautiful concept art and smooth trailers are substituted for compelling gameplay loops.
The Square Enix pattern: Stunning trailers. Carefully controlled pre-launch narrative. Review embargos that sometimes backfire. A launch that reveals the gap between presentation and substance. And then, months later, a quiet acknowledgment that things did not go as planned. Forspoken. Babylon’s Fall. The DioField Chronicle. All followed versions of this arc. Final Fantasy Resonance does not have to be next. But the conditions are present.
Square Enix is not incapable of quality. Their HD-2D track record is actually strong. Octopath Traveler was a revelation. Triangle Strategy sold over a million copies and was critically acclaimed. The upcoming Ocarina of Time remake discussions show they understand the value of classic franchises done right. But those successes came from different teams with different leadership. Resonance is being made by the same developer that shipped The DioField Chronicle, and published by the same company that thought Forspoken was ready for prime time. Pedigree is not transferable.
The HD-2D gamble: beautiful, expensive, and unforgiving
Final Fantasy Resonance is not just a Final Fantasy game. It is the first Final Fantasy game in a visual style that Square Enix has spent years refining but never before applied to its flagship franchise. The HD-2D aesthetic, all pixel-art sprites, dynamic lighting, tilt-shift depth effects, and 3D environments, is gorgeous when it works and fragile when it does not.
Producer Nakashima revealed at Japan Expo 2026 that the camera work in Resonance had to be adjusted pixel by pixel. One wrong camera move, he said, could break the entire 2D look. This is not hyperbole. HD-2D depends on a very specific relationship between the 2D sprite plane and the 3D camera angle. Move the camera too far, and the sprites look like cardboard cutouts. Too close, and the environmental depth collapses. The style is a high-wire act, and LANCARSE has never attempted it before.
Square Enix’s internal teams, the ones that made Octopath Traveler and Triangle Strategy, have spent years learning this craft. Artdink, which developed Triangle Strategy, refined the approach across multiple titles. LANCARSE is walking into this for the first time, on a Final Fantasy game, with a simultaneous five-platform launch, while also managing 26 Visions, a reworked story from a mobile source, and a battle system that is supposed to modernize turn-based combat without losing what made the classics work.
The HD-2D style is also expensive. Square Enix has acknowledged that it “costs more than you’d think.” Every pixel-art sprite must be hand-crafted to read correctly against 3D lighting. Every environment must be built twice: once as geometry, once as a canvas for the sprite art to sit on. The result, when done well, is timeless. The result, when done poorly, is a game that looks like a tech demo with a $70 price tag.
The mobile origin problem: can a gacha story become a classic?
Final Fantasy Resonance is based on Final Fantasy Brave Exvius, a mobile gacha RPG designed around daily engagement, summon mechanics, and episodic content drops. The producer’s justification for the adaptation is that Brave Exvius was “too good to become unplayable.” That is a lovely sentiment. It is also an admission that the source material was built for a completely different medium with completely different design constraints.
Mobile RPGs and console RPGs are different beasts. A mobile game can get away with fragmented storytelling because players experience it in ten-minute sessions over months. A console RPG needs narrative momentum, structural cohesion, and a sense that the world exists for the player rather than for the retention metrics. Gacha games are designed to never end. Console RPGs need endings that feel earned. The transition between those two formats has historically been rocky.
GamesRadar’s preview of Resonance captured this tension perfectly: “Final Fantasy Resonance is almost my dream FF game, but its link to Square Enix’s mobile games leaves me cold.” The author was excited about the HD-2D presentation, the turn-based combat, the classic callbacks. The mobile origin was the thing that broke the spell. And that is from a writer who liked what they played.
Square Enix has done this before. Octopath Traveler: Champions of the Continent was a mobile prequel to Octopath Traveler, and the console adaptation, Octopath Traveler 0, required significant reworking to feel like a native console experience. The difference is that Octopath Traveler 0 was built by the team that understood the original. Resonance is being built by a team that did not make Brave Exvius. They are adapting someone else’s mobile game into their first HD-2D project, on a franchise they have never touched before, in a visual style they have never used. That is a lot of firsts for one release.
The demo dilemma: reassurance or red flag?
In early September 2026, Square Enix released a free demo for Final Fantasy Resonance across all platforms. It covers the entire first chapter and allows save data transfer to the full game. On the surface, this is consumer-friendly behavior. Demos are good. Demos let players judge for themselves. Demos reduce pre-order risk.
But context matters. The demo arrived after months of quiet concern about the game, following a reveal that excited people visually but left them uncertain about the mobile origin, the developer, and the scope of the rework. The director’s statement that the demo would “dispel uncertainty” frames it not as a generous bonus but as a corrective. A confident game does not need to dispel uncertainty. A confident game builds anticipation.
The demo also serves a strategic purpose for Square Enix. By releasing it six weeks before launch, they create a narrative of transparency while still controlling the information flow. Players can judge the opening chapter, but not the late-game grind. They can see the HD-2D presentation, but not whether the 26 Visions are balanced or bloated. They can experience the combat, but not whether the story maintains its momentum across a full campaign. A demo is a snapshot, and snapshots can be carefully composed.
Our recommendation is simple: play the demo. Not because it will prove the game is bad, but because it is the only data you will have before the pre-order window closes. And when you play it, ask specific questions. Does the combat have depth, or just complexity? Does the story move with purpose, or does it feel like a mobile episode stretched to console length? Does the HD-2D hold up in motion, or does it look like a filter? Does the grinding start in chapter one, or is it hidden behind a progression wall? The answers to those questions will tell you more than any trailer.
The verdict: what to watch for before you buy
Final Fantasy Resonance could be great. The HD-2D style is proven when handled by the right team. The Brave Exvius source material has years of story to draw from. The Visions system, if balanced well, could be a genuinely novel way to bring Final Fantasy history into a single game. And LANCARSE is not incompetent; they are inconsistent, which is a different thing entirely. Inconsistent studios sometimes deliver their best work when the stakes are highest.
But the warning signs are not imaginary. They are documented, repeated, and specific. Here is what to watch for in reviews and player reports after launch:
Red Flags to Watch For
- Grinding before the ten-hour mark: Monark’s signature flaw was brutal pacing. If Resonance asks you to farm for levels or materials early, that is a LANCARSE fingerprint.
- Vision bloat: 26 summonable characters is a lot to balance. If most Visions feel situational or underpowered, the system is decoration, not design.
- Mobile story structure: If the narrative feels episodic, fragmented, or designed to be consumed in chunks rather than as a cohesive journey, the mobile origin has not been fully overcome.
- HD-2D technical issues: Camera problems, sprite pop-in, or environments that look better in screenshots than in motion would indicate the pixel-by-pixel craft was not enough.
- Review embargo timing: If Square Enix sets a late embargo or restricts early access, that is the Forspoken playbook. Be suspicious.
- Day-one patches: A massive day-one patch six weeks after a demo suggests the demo was a stable branch and the full game is still being fixed.
The safest play is the one that Square Enix’s own track record suggests: wait. Wait for reviews from outlets you trust. Wait for player reports after the first week, when the honeymoon period ends and the grind begins. Wait for Digital Foundry’s technical analysis. Wait to see if the game that ships on October 22 is the same game that was in the demo. In a world where pre-order culture has burned players repeatedly, and where ambitious projects from established studios can still collapse, patience is the only rational pre-order strategy.
For players who want a Final Fantasy experience without the uncertainty, the HD-2D successes in Square Enix’s catalog, Octopath Traveler, Triangle Strategy, and the upcoming Ocarina of Time remake discussions, show what the style can achieve in the right hands. Resonance might join that list. But it might also follow The DioField Chronicle into the category of interesting experiments that did not justify their existence. The difference between those outcomes will not be visible in a trailer. It will be visible in whether LANCARSE has finally learned to build a game as good as its ideas.
Frequently Asked Questions
Final Fantasy Resonance is an upcoming HD-2D RPG from Square Enix and LANCARSE, releasing October 22, 2026, for Nintendo Switch 2, Switch, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC. It is the first Final Fantasy game built in the HD-2D visual style and is based on the mobile game Final Fantasy Brave Exvius, reworked with a new story, world map, and strategic turn-based combat system.
The game is being developed by LANCARSE, a Tokyo-based studio founded in 2004, in collaboration with Square Enix. LANCARSE’s previous original titles include Lost Dimension, Monark, and The DioField Chronicle. They also contributed to Etrian Odyssey and Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey as a support studio earlier in their history.
Mixed. LANCARSE has consistently demonstrated the ability to create interesting combat systems and novel concepts, but their original titles have struggled with execution. Monark (2022) received a 66 Metascore, with reviewers praising the combat depth but criticizing brutal grinding, repetitive structure, and disjointed storytelling. The DioField Chronicle (2022), their previous Square Enix collaboration, was a commercial disappointment described by critics as repetitive and underdeveloped. Their history suggests ambition exceeds execution.
Yes. A free demo covering the entire first chapter was released in early September 2026 for all platforms, with save data transfer to the full game. Producer Keisuke Nakashima stated the demo was specifically intended to “dispel any kinds of uncertainty or concerns that people may have had” about the game.
HD-2D is a visual style pioneered by Square Enix that combines classic 2D pixel-art sprites with fully 3D environments, modern lighting, depth-of-field effects, and tilt-shift techniques. It creates a diorama-like appearance that evokes classic RPGs while using contemporary rendering technology. Games like Octopath Traveler and Triangle Strategy have successfully used the style. Final Fantasy Resonance is the first mainline-adjacent Final Fantasy title to adopt it.
Based on the developer’s track record and Square Enix’s recent history of troubled launches, we recommend waiting for reviews and early player feedback before purchasing. The demo is available and offers a genuine sample of the opening chapter. Play it, evaluate whether the combat depth and story pacing meet your expectations, and wait for post-launch reports on whether the full game maintains that quality or devolves into the grinding and repetition that has plagued LANCARSE’s previous titles.
Square Enix has had multiple high-profile disappointments. Forspoken (2023) received “lacklustre” sales and a “challenging” reception, leading to the disbanding of developer Luminous Productions. Its marketing was criticized for using misleading accolades in trailers. Babylon’s Fall (2022), a live-service collaboration with PlatinumGames, was critically panned, commercially disastrous, and shut down within a year. The DioField Chronicle (2022), LANCARSE’s previous Square Enix project, was a commercial disappointment. The pattern is not quality alone but a gap between polished marketing and unfinished execution.
No, though it is based on Brave Exvius. Square Enix and LANCARSE have stated that Resonance features a reworked story, a new world map, redesigned combat, and enough changes to feel like a new game. Producer Keisuke Nakashima said Brave Exvius was “too good to become unplayable” when the mobile servers eventually shut down, and Resonance is intended as a console resurrection of that material. However, the mobile origin remains a concern for some players and critics.
The game is scheduled for release on Nintendo Switch 2, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC on October 22, 2026.
The Visions system allows players to summon classic Final Fantasy characters as spectral allies to aid in battle. The game features 26 Visions total, drawn from across Final Fantasy history. This system is one of the game’s major selling points but also one of its biggest design challenges, as balancing 26 additional characters alongside the main party is a significant undertaking for any developer.
Yes, when developed by the right teams. Octopath Traveler was a critical and commercial success that established the HD-2D style. Triangle Strategy sold over one million copies and was widely acclaimed. However, both were developed by teams with deep experience in the style. Final Fantasy Resonance is LANCARSE’s first HD-2D project, and the producer has acknowledged that even minor camera adjustments could “break the entire 2D look,” requiring pixel-by-pixel refinement.