A mod for Final Fantasy Tactics two years in the making looks like it'll launch in 2023, bringing a new campaign, story, and characters to the classic tactics RPG—it'll also have an aesthetically appropriate version of Triple Triad, the fan-favorite card game introduced in Final Fantasy 8 and reintroduced in MMO Final Fantasy 14.
The mod will have the expected new classes and abilities to go with its new characters and missions, but on top of that will have unique systems for its protagonist. Maine's unique "Hero" class will enable him to use up to three abilities in specific combo sequences over the course of a single turn—something that in the framework of a game like this must have required more than a bit of modding wizardry.
The mod is made by Jumza, a member of a larger group of Final Fantasy Tactics modders called Final Fantasy Hacktics, which organizes across a forum and discord server. It'll use the PSX version of Final Fantasy Tactics as a base. Jumza says that Chapter 1 of Final Fantasy Tactics: Reach the Future mod will be available in 2023, and that its been in development for about two years now.
Final Fantasy Tactics, for its part, is a game that people have both loved and wanted a sequel to for years—so the audience for mods is is pretty hungry. Originally an experimental spin on combining a Final Fantasy-style JRPG with a tactics game, it's now considered one of the progenitors of the tactics RPG or SRPG genre. So much so that when Square Enix announced another tactical RPG we here at PC Gamer managed to complain in a headline that it wasn't a Final Fantasy Tactics sequel.
You can keep up with the development of the Reach The Future mod for Final Fantasy Tactics on Youtube, Twitter, and the Final Fantasy Hacktics Forum.
If you're a fan enough of the tactics RPG genre that you're still here, you might enjoy a piece I wrote earlier this year about how there sure are a lot of strategy RPGs out on PC right now.
