Recently, the director of the upcoming remaster for Final Fantasy Tactics stated that it was made possible solely due to the love and preservation efforts of the fans. It’s one of many reasons why game preservation is so important.

87% of video games released in the United States before 2010 are critically endangered of being lost, according to a study done by the Video Game History Foundation. Codes and assets can be lost during consolidation, moving location, or other business activities. This digital age makes it even harder to preserve games. Fans tend to keep dead games alive, and that saves a lot of games for the future. 

Square Enix is one of many companies who lost the source code for one of their beloved titles. Final Fantasy Tactics was in purgatory, and fans had lost hope for a remaster. 

While it was technically re-released for the PSP as Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions, the team wanted to work with the source material. That was only possible after a lot of legwork and fan dedication.

Kazutoyo Maehiro, the director for the remaster, explained at a PAX West 2025 panel how the original code was lost or destroyed: “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.”

The team set out on the impossible journey of finding what they felt was the original source code. “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.”

This should be a shining example of why game preservation is important. This is one of the many instances where a game’s source code has been lost. It’s happened to Square Enix on multiple occasions, including with Final Fantasy VIII.

Games like StarCraft, Ninja Gaiden Black, Ninja Gaiden 2, and Blade Runner all had their source code lost. Fans were unhappy that the Sigma versions of Ninja Gaiden 1 and 2 were added to the Ninja Gaiden: Master Collection instead of the originals. Fans hate or love all the changes made in the Sigma versions. There’s no way to play the original versions of Ninja Gaiden 1 or 2 on Xbox Game Pass; it’s just Sigma, an incredibly divisive version of iconic games. 

StarCraft had to be remade from scratch due to the source code and assets being lost. Recreating a game is much like recreating a legendary painting. It won’t look or feel exactly the same to the observer. A perfect recreation means reproducing small things like lighting issues or perspective shifts. Recreating the imperfect perfectly takes a lot of time and resources. That alone will make a company say that a remaster is a waste of time. Luckily, the source code was found and returned later.

More often than not, we don’t outright own the games we buy today. There needs to be a way to preserve titles so they are not lost to a dying console, a short game lifespan, warehouse storage fires, a company being acquired, or simply record-keeping negligence. Fans and newer organizations, such as the Video Game History Foundation, are working to preserve games. Thanks to fans, Final Fantasy Tactics is getting the remaster and fanfare it deserves. Again, it’s one of the many reasons why game preservation is so important. 

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