Square Enix's first Final Fantasy built in its HD-2D style is out now. Final Fantasy Resonance launched on October 22 on Nintendo Switch 2, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox on PC and Steam, where it costs $49.99. If you want to try it first, a free demo covers the opening through the end of Chapter 1, and your save carries over to the full game.
Brave Exvius, rebuilt as a single-purchase RPG
Resonance is co-developed by Square Enix and LANCARSE, and its story comes from Final Fantasy Brave Exvius, the free-to-play mobile RPG that ran from 2015 to 2025. This is not a port. The world, the combat and the progression have been rebuilt from scratch as a traditional single-player game you buy once, with no gacha banners or stamina timers. Only the cast and the outline of the plot survive from the mobile original.
That outline is classic early Final Fantasy. Rain and Lasswell are childhood friends and knights of the Kingdom of Grandshelt. An armored stranger attacks the castle, steals a relic and shatters the Earth Crystal the kingdom was sworn to protect. The pair soon meet Fina, a spellcaster with no memory of her past and some tie to the disaster, and set out to stop a group called the Sworn Six before the world's other elemental Crystals go the same way. Airships, chocobos, moogles, espers and magitek are all part of the world.
What HD-2D brings to Final Fantasy
HD-2D is the look Square Enix developed for Octopath Traveler and Triangle Strategy and later used for the Dragon Quest remakes: pixel-art character sprites inside 3D environments, with modern lighting, particle effects, depth of field and a moving camera. Square Enix pitches Resonance as an answer to the question of what Final Fantasy would look like if it had never left pixel art behind. It is the first Final Fantasy game to use the style. Big moments such as summon-style attacks switch to fully 3D cinematic cutscenes.
Turn-based battles with a stagger twist
Combat is fully turn-based rather than Active Time Battle. A timeline across the top of the screen shows the order of upcoming ally and enemy turns, so you can plan around who acts next. Each enemy also has a stagger meter, and every skill tells you how much health damage and stagger damage it will do. Empty an enemy's stagger meter and it loses its next action and takes extra damage, while the party member who broke it gets a bonus action at the end of the round.
Stagger every enemy still standing and you trigger a Sweeping Stagger, which gives the whole party a bonus end-of-round action. Elemental weaknesses, resistances and familiar status effects such as poison, blind, silence and charm all return, and hitting a weakness does extra damage to both health and stagger. Character growth is deliberately traditional: each character's stats and skill list unlock at fixed levels.
Visions: Cloud, Terra, Zidane and more
Customization comes from Visions, echoes of past Final Fantasy heroes that lend their abilities to your party. Square Enix has already shown the Warrior of Light, Terra, Cloud, Zidane, Cecil, Bartz and Clive, and more are hidden in shrines around the world. Each party member equips one Vision at a time. Fighting with a Vision raises your mastery with it and unlocks more of its abilities, and a Sweeping Stagger lets you unleash that Vision's Resonance attack as a full 3D cutscene.
Editions and bonuses
The standard edition is $49.99 on Steam. If you buy before 8:59 a.m. PT on November 6, 2026, you get the Squire Kickstart Pack, which includes a Blessed Cuirass that raises the gil you earn and a Mist Ether. The Digital Deluxe Edition adds the Magitek & Grimoire Deluxe Pack. It includes a Magitek Armor Key that turns your chocobo into magitek armor, an Archwitch's Grimoire that unlocks a Fel Meteor Limit Burst for one character, a Mastery Ring, and a set of consumables: tents, potions, ethers, Phoenix Downs and Remedies. Bonus items from either pack are claimed from a postbox outside the inn in the Town of Mitra once you reach a certain point in the story.
On Xbox, Resonance supports Xbox Play Anywhere, so one purchase covers both Series X|S and PC.
PC requirements
The Steam version needs Windows 11, DirectX 12 and 15 GB of storage, and its requirements are modest:
- Minimum (1080p, 30 fps, Low preset): AMD Ryzen 3 2300X or Intel Core i3-8100, 8 GB RAM, AMD Radeon RX 6400, Intel Arc A580 or NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650.
- Recommended (1080p, 60 fps, Highest preset): AMD Ryzen 5 2500X or Intel Core i3-8100, 8 GB RAM, AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT, Intel Arc A580 or NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650.
The Chapter 1 demo is available on every platform and is the easiest way to check how it runs on your hardware before you buy. You can explore the whole first chapter as it appears in the full game, with some level restrictions.
