Jack is not a hero in the traditional sense, but a man consumed by a hunger to destroy Chaos, a force that turns out to be a myth created by humans to rationalize the existence of darkness. This dark fantasy interpretation of the original Final Fantasy setting was released on the 18th of March 2022, developed by Koei Tecmo's Team Ninja and published by Square Enix. The game was born from a collaboration between franchise creator Square Enix and the action-focused Team Ninja, co-directed by Daisuke Inoue, Hiroya Usuda, and Nobumichi Kumabe. The story was written by Kazushige Nojima, a freelancer from Stellavista Ltd., while the original concept and character designs were crafted by Tetsuya Nomura, who had previously worked on Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy. The music was composed by Naoshi Mizuta, with additional contributions from Hidenori Iwasaki and Ryo Yamazaki. The game was released for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S, marking a significant departure from the typical Final Fantasy tone with its brutal, mature approach.
The Myth of the Warriors of Light
Jack arrives in the kingdom of Cornelia with two companions, Ash and Jed, who are initially mistaken for the prophesied Warriors of Light due to their possession of black crystals. However, the King of Cornelia is skeptical of their mission, as the prophecy typically involves four warriors, not three. They enter the Shrine of Chaos and defeat a young girl named Neon, who reveals that Chaos is a myth and that she had attempted to absorb all the world's darkness to become a singular entity of Chaos ten years prior. Neon joins the party as the fourth Warrior of Light, and together they discover that they have all lost their memories, a deliberate act to prevent personal attachments from interfering with their duty. The King tasks them with restoring the Crystals of Wind, Fire, Earth, and Water to save the world, but the journey reveals deeper truths about their origins and the nature of the darkness they seek to destroy.The Truth Behind the Crystals
As the Warriors journey to restore the crystals, they encounter Astos, the King of the Dark Elves, who guides them to the Wind Crystal. Along the way, they are transported to the Flying Fortress, a space station orbiting the planet, where they defeat the Fiend of Chaos Tiamat, who reverts to another defeated hero named Sophia. The party begins to recover fragments of their memories, realizing they come from a faraway land beyond Cornelia. They defeat the Fiends Lich and Marilith to restore the Earth and Fire Crystals, and later the Fiend Kraken to restore the Water Crystal. Neon admits that she was born in Cornelia and was given her crystal by Astos, while the others remember they are Strangers, otherworldly agents sent to Cornelia to destroy the darkness that Lufenia, a highly advanced civilization, disposed there. The truth is that the Strangers have been sent to Cornelia many times before, with their memories erased on every deployment, and if they fail, Lufenia simply resets the world.