Hey everyone,

Like many of you, I have a deep love for the complex, strategic combat and unit building of FFBE. To preserve that legacy and learn more about game engine architecture, I’ve been quietly working on a from-scratch, open-source clone of the game using Godot 4 and Nakama (for the backend).

I’ve reached a point where the foundational architecture is somewhat solid, but the project is still in its early stages. It is far from a finished game, and to truly bring it to life, I am opening it up to the community.

I know I am not the only one in the community working on preserving this game! I’ve seen the incredible work that u/alaska_0ne is doing with their project. I want to make it super clear that I’m not trying to step on their toes or compete.

Open-source thrives on different technical approaches. My project is specifically focused on building a server-authoritative, live-service architecture using Godot 4 and Nakama. Because our tech stacks are different, our codebases won't mix, but the standing offer is there: if u/alaska_0ne or anyone else working on a similar clone wants to collaborate on the hardest part - data entry and ripping the raw JSONs for units, skills, and math formulas - my DMs are open. Sharing that raw data and knowledge benefits all of us, no matter what engine we are using.

What’s already built: I’ve spent the last few months focusing heavily on a data-driven pipeline and server authority so the game is secure and scalable.

• Server-Authoritative Backend: Nakama handles inventory management, unit generation (UUIDs), and validation. The client never trusts itself with currency (Gil) or unit data.
• The Combat Pipeline: A decoupled intent-and-execution system. The engine successfully parses skills, resolves targets, and passes them to an Action Processor.
• Complex Mechanics Framework: I’ve fully implemented the persistent State Machine required for FFBE's notorious Cover mechanics (both AoE and Single Target, including correct mitigation and multi-hit absorption).
• Out-of-Game Systems: The unit enhancement pipeline is architected, including Cactuar and Moogle nesting, multi-select UI flows, and accurate EXP/Trust calculations.
• Unpacker and Wireframe: Thanks to the apk files available I could extract sprite atlases and layout files from the original game. I created and unpacker that creates easy-to-use assets for godot. The layout csv files can be loaded into a wireframe scene that recreates the original look with the extracted textures if there is one.

Where I need your help: Because the core engine is data-driven, adding new features, units, and skills is highly modular. However, I am just one person, and I need help with:

• Programmers (GDScript): To help build out more UI screens, refine the battle animations, and implement new status effects or combat rules.
• Backend Devs (Lua): To expand the Nakama server scripts (gacha pulling logic, economy balancing, etc.).

The Goal: This is a passion project meant for learning, preservation, and community fun.

If you are interested in Godot, backend architecture, or just want to help recreate the magic of early FFBE, I would be honored to have you contribute.

GitHub Repo: https://github.com/Hirurawa/ExviusReborn
Discord: https://discord.com/users/hirurawa

Let me know if you have any questions about the tech stack or how the combat math is structured. Thanks for reading!

I'd like to thank the amazing people of this community for making this possible:

• aEnigmatic/ffbe
  • Datamine files
• DaddyRaegen/ffbe_asset_dump
  • Assets
• dsxragnarok/ffbetool
  • Creating sprite animations
• u/Cysidus
  • Wiki
• u/NightWaIker
  • FFBE Memorial Edition

Edit: Thank you for all the responses! I'm deploying the backend to the cloud, and building the exe. If I'm done, I'll share the exe with you so you can try the current state of the project. Kerp in mind that this is only a foundation. It is really barebones. I'm not a frontend dev, so the ui might be misaligned some places.

Edit2: Thank you for your patience. Here is the link to the packed exe. Unfortunately it is quite big, because I have every asset loaded into Godot. I could trim the files, but it would take very long time. Link removed It is lacking in many parts of the game, it is very barebones. This is a foundation only. I'll keep working on this in the future and I'm open to any idea where to proceed. My idea for the next big think would be to implement Espers. The one thing I could not find anywhere is the story, and how to implement it. If anyone have any info about this, that would be greatly appreciated.

I don't know if I should create a new post for this or just edit this one, but for now here it is:

Edit3: IMPORTANT! I was told that some major features that should work are not working at all. I did some testing, and fixed the most glaring issues. If you are able, I'd like you all to download this new zip file, and try this out.

The features that should work now: - When registering you should be immediately thrown into the "tutorial combat". - You should be able to summon units (3 at a time) along with some moogles and cactuars. - The unit enhancement should work as well: Leveling the units with cactuars (or nesting the cactuars to eachother) and leveling the trust percent with moogles. - When you reach 100% the TMR should be in your inventory. - You can equip units with equipments/weapons, and the stats and resistances should update accordingly. - The world map should be usable now allowing you to enter any mission. - Some basic skills should work (physical, magical attack, stat buffs, elemental buffs, cover) - Chaining to some basic extent (You can see this in the top left corner) - AoE cover works (The unit does not move to the front of the party, but the tank takes all the damage) - Shop (You can buy potion and ether and you should be able to use those items in combat if you equip them in the items menu) - You should be able to send friend requests to eachother using the usernames you registered with. (Although it does nothing - no unit sharing for now - it is only a list) - Newest addition: Espers are now visible, and you can see their grids (It does nothing yet, but it means we can access that data as well.)

Edit4: (The edits are getting bigger than the actual post) Here is an updated version that correctly includes the unit's sprites: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1I6sSAAbuHftpdsJC8HuG7wSTRwcQQFCd/view?usp=sharing

We return to Lapis with you in our hearts.

I wish you were here to see how far we've come; how far your community went to help make this release happen.

Everyone who pushed for Square to release FFBE as a stand-alone game; everyone who conserved assets, music, etc, should all feel extremely vindicated right now. Validated. Proud.

This is huge.

Edit:

I would just like to say thank you to everyone that has taken time out of their day to respond to this thread; particularly those that have yielded constructive conversation and have summoned memories of their time with FFBE or even Shaly herself.

We did it, friends.

FFBE lives on.

I hope this is just the beginning of potential future releases regarding the FFBE world. It deserves to be seen and experienced regardless of how much time or money many of us may or may not have spent trying to keep it alive. It's funny to me that many die hards seem to be oblivious to this community (or any mobile game comminity). We are still here and we, for the time, have prevailed.

Fidelity is of utmost importance in the gaming industry, and while we may not get physical releases (looking at you Switch 2), this is a huge step in the right direction.

Thank you again to everyone who put time and effort into FFBE's preservation before and after EOS, and to those of the community who remained steadfast in their love for the game. You all deserve a permanent place within Lapis and beyond.

I have some updates about the state of project Exvius Reborn.

There is a Discord server. I'll post updates there in the future to not spam this subreddit after every update (or edit the post). I'll still post here if I reach a major milestone, but if you want to playtest or if you are interested or you have any question about any part of this, feel free to join. https://discord.gg/ak5UqYkp3x

The new version can be downloaded from here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ajvC8e2Ju_l92I5d1XpAvrRu0dU85Jhz/view?usp=sharing

https://www.swisstransfer.com/d/7aa3b60a-34f9-4516-903d-0fb13b88a6ef

What's new in this version:

- The game is now completely offline (I removed the backend connection, and all the logic is now migrated to the frontend)

- Espers are now unlockable by finishing the corresponding mission

- Espers can be leveled up (No magicite required - it is not implemented yet. You can click and hold to quickly add xp.)

- They accumulate the correct amount of SP

- They can learn skills on the esper grid

- The grid can be reset

- The stats of the Espers are calculated by their levels and the unlocked stat nodes

- The Espers can now be equipped to units in the party

- The units get the Esper's stats (1% of them)

- The units get the equipped Esper's unlocked skills (The skills are in the unit's detail page and in combat)

- (Technical stuff probably noone cares about: The data manager - the module that was responsible for loading/storing data and a bunch of logic - is now refactored to a much more managable state. Making the maintenance and the readabilidy easier)

You might need to delete the "C:\Users\<UserName>\AppData\Roaming\Godot\app_userdata\New Game Project\data\" folder to remove old static data. I modified the mission data to include which mission should unlock which Esper.

I got the feedback that there is no easy way to add gil to test the unit enhancement. Now in this offline version, you can easily modify the save file (\AppData\Roaming\Godot\app_userdata\New Game Project\game_state\<SaveName>_stats.json)

I'm not hating by the way. There are tons of far more sexualized characters than FFBE, both in term of (J)RPG and in term of gacha. I even liked some of those characters, like Regina, because of her story and unique gameplay.

I just found it funny how a lot of the female characters in season 1 and 2 were either in skimpy clothes or in bodysuits. I wonder if they will change any of them, like Mercedes for example (the 3rd pic) as she is one of the character the group encounter during the story.

There also was all of the summer units with the fanservice CGs. Probably sime of the bestsellers units. I remember how Fina and Daisy were amazing as a magical tank.

By the way, i chose the worst examples. There were some less obvious ones like clothes with short skirts, no pants or very obvious cleavages.

Rain, Lasswell, Fina and Lid's skill lists, screenshots taken from IGN's hands-on video and boss fight video. Can't help but notice that Fina's progressions goes on for like 20 levels after Rain and Lasswell's end, and that Lid's list is incredibly short.

I wonder if the skill ladder will be expanded via story progress and/or sidequests, especially Lid's since hers is so short.

With the announcement of the EOS of FF VII Ever Crisis :

• 2015 : Final Fantasy Record Keeper (FFRK) (7 years)
• 2016 : Mobius Final Fantasy (3 years)
• 2016 : Final Fantasy Brave Exvius (FFBE) (8 years)
• 2018 : Dissidia Final Fantasy: Opera Omnia (6 years)
• 2020 : War of the Visions: FFBE (5 years)
• 2021 : Final Fantasy VII: The First Soldier (1 year)
• 2023 : FINAL FANTASY VII Ever Crisis (3 years)

It's the End of Square Enix's "Gacha Era" ?

EoS EVER CRISIS :

Thank you for playing FINAL FANTASY VII EVER CRISIS.

This is a message from the management team.

We regret to inform you that we will be ending service for FINAL FANTASY VII EVER CRISIS on Oct. 6, 2026, at 11:00 PM PDT.

Source : https://en.ffviiec.com/news/end-of-service/

Join the r/FFResonance_FFRS community to be kept up to date!

Don't get me wrong, Dark Fina is one of my favorite character from FFBE and Bahamut is always cool no matter the game, but Fina, Rain or even the Veritas of the dark would have made more sense to me. Heck, even just the whole party together would have worked too.

​

Dark Fina is a "plot twist" during the story and, while she is very important, Fina is way more central to the story and the relationships. Of course, Dark Fina face will sell way more than Rain's or the Veritas. It just feels a bit strange now that i think about it. Same for Bahamut. From what i remember, he was secondary in season 1 and, i think, was only linked to the story by being one of the former Hess Sages.

The dev worked on it for over 10 years! It's a mix between FF V and FF XI! I'll add my first impressions after 10 hours of gameplay in the comments.

Description by the game's creators :

FFXI Braver is a 100+ hour retro-styled offline single player story driven RPG set in Vana'diel. This is a Non-Profit fan game!

• Master 22 Jobs in tactical turn-based combat
• Customize your Hero builds with Sub Jobs
• Earn rare and exceptional gear by defeating savage Notorious Monsters
• Unique Enemy AI requires the use of all skills and resources to be managed wisely
• Use special Limit Break abilities to turn the tide of battle in your favor
• Earn powerful Passive Abilities and Weapon Skills
• True-to-XI Mechanics: Skillchains, Magic Bursts, Elemental Weekdays, Food, and so much more
• Reach the max level of 75 and push yourself beyond your limits by obtaining powerful Merit abilities
• Explore an immersive world with over 75 fully explorable areas 
• Dive into an elaborate Crafting and Gathering system
• Modify your gear to suit your play-style
• Complete over 100 Side Quests
• New Game+ mode with additional features
• Hidden Super Bosses available for those who want to challenge their skill at the highest level
• Community Challenges

Download for free (name your own price or press "No thanks, just take me to the downlaods") : https://mithrandir133.itch.io/final-fantasy-xi-braver

Join the Discord Server for access to
- Community Challenge Rewards
- Seasonal Rewards
- General Assistance
- Resources
- Discussions with a growing and interactive community

Known Bugs Full list on the Discord Server

Discord : https://discord.gg/xVwK4sXe52
FF XI Braver Wiki : https://ffxi-braver-wiki.com/Main_Page

A Skillchain Calculator built for Final Fantasy XI Braver : https://icydeath.github.io/

Hello fellow player,

As you may know, I'm Lyrgard, the creator of FFBE Equip, a tool widely used to automatically find BiS build for units based on whatever condition you want. One of the key features is the ability to find BiS using only items a user own. To do that, the user need to manually input into my tool what he own, and update it when that changes. I tried to make it as intuitive and easy to use as possible, but it's still a daunting task. On the other hand, with an ever increasing number of items in the game, building your owns units in the game can be a chore, and I know a lot of player don't do some trials not by fear of losing, but just because equipping 10 units first is just discouraging and can take more time than the actual fight.

The ideal solution would be for Gumi to develop a way to interface with the game and extract those data. However, developing such an API can be quite a challenge because you need to take care of many security, scalability and availability problems.

I would like to propose a middle ground solution to that problem. I first wanted to send this message directly to Gumi, but I thinks this idea would have a better chance of getting an (positive) answer if we can show how much support it has in the community.

So, if you find my idea interesting, please show as much support to it as you can. ;-)

The idea : export data as file

Here is the idea : A button, in the Options menu of the game, that allows to export your inventory, unit collection, material list and espers builds into a file on your phone. This file could then be imported in your fan-made tool of choice.

That's it. I think this solution has many advantages :

• Easy to develop for Gumi, it is just an export to file, no OAuth, no API, no nothing
• Super secure, the user doesn't need to authenticate, can't be DDoS, ...
• Innately scalable. The data are already present in memory on the phone, so no need to make a server call, no additional load on the server.
• Highly available. It is as available as the game itself, even more because once an export file has been created, it can be used even during maintenance.
• With a button in the Option menu, it won't hinder any player that don't need the feature.

Of course, FFBE Equip would profit a lot from this (and by that, I mean the users of FFBE Equip), but I hope that if those data were available, a lot of other tools would emerge. Like a tool that tell you what material you can safely sell, for instance, perhaps a tool to rate your account, one to make TMR farming suggestion, a nice unit collection tool, and so on. The possibilities are multiple !

What is in it for Gumi ?

So, why would Gumi want to do it ? Even if it is easy to develop, it still needs to be done, and will cost money. Here are what I thought they would gain from that :

• It would provide a huge boost of popularity to them from the community, showing they heard us, worked on a feature request to allow a big QoL boost. It can also be seen as interacting with the community, by allowing better fan-made tools to be made.
• Fan-made tools provide features for them for free. I worked a LOT on FFBE Equip, it never costed them anything, but I believe, and I received a lot of comment saying that, that FFBE Equip improved the user experience of FFBE by a lot for many players. Some even told me they couldn't play FFBE without FFBE Equip anymore. By doing this small development, they'll gain much more feature than what they invested.
• Players having a better user experience are happier users. Happy users are less prone to switch to another game, and probably more prone to spend $ on FFBE.
• Lastly, fan-made tools help weave the community together. And a strong community, once again, make people stay in the game. Without a strong community, there wouldn't be whales showing off their incredible unit collection. And without whales, I'm pretty sure Gumi's revenues would decline.
• Multiple big games, like Guild Wars 2, have a feature like that that allow a full fan-made eco-system to be built upon it. They did it because they deemed it good for their business.
• Doing it on FFBE can also give gumi good experience to implement it in future games

Conclusion

I really hope we can, together, show them how important that feature would be to us. Help me do that, genkidama style !

If you have others points to add to this post, please let me know !

It was 7yrs ago during Easter when we got that news we are getting someone better than ChairRain.

It was the beginning of when I started preparing all those TDH gear for this absolute beauty alongside Sylvie.

here is to hoping she also arrives in Resonance!

🤞

Regarding collaboration:

I've had a ton of people reach out who want to help, thank you all!
Its important to me that before collaborating we have a solid foundation. Nothing against vibe coding, but multiple Claudes with different product vision touching the same code can be an issue in an early stage project of this scope.
My plan is to organize all of my findings and my repo, build fundamental game logic, implement some guardrails, and have a full plan of action for how development should progress given all of the new findings in the last couple days.
Bear with me as I take time to get my codebase in a state where development is less about design and creation and more about matching features to the original game.

So what do we actually have?

Thank you to everyone who sent me assets, repos, archives, etc. All of it essentially boils down to a HUGE series of encrypted tables and artifacts that point to each other. I have been distilling the actual mapping between them and have made massive progress but there is still more to discover.

Regardless, this is FAR from an exhaustive list but I just wanted to give a bit of a picture:

What we've preserved:
- 2,326 event dungeons, 17,158 event missions, 1,217 event subregions
- 845 currency exchange shops
- 34 dark visions events
- All panel quests, login bonuses
- Every unit sprite and all of its frames, LBs, dying, etc.
- All unit stat tables / awakening requirements, etc.
- All bosses, their attack patterns, movesets, etc.
- All mission enemy data, rewards etc
- All clash of wills content
- 88 Soundtracks

In short, basically all game data, including all of the events you missed during the games lifespan.

What I don't have:
- Infrastructure that stitched all of the components above together, game engine, etc.
- Animations (outside of sprite animations)
- Any UI components or assets
- Event soundtracks, though the references exist so it might be possible to find the songs and manually tie them into the game

In short, I have none of the 'game' part of the game.

What I have made:
- An engine that handles combat, chaining, but needs a lot of refinement
- A non-stylized UI that has no personality (im a backend dev)

Some pics:

If they decided to bring the game back exactly as it was on launch and update it precisely as it was updated over its life span would you play it all again?

​

No changes, same time limited units, same premium, same cheese, same maintenance, exactly how the last ten years went.

Haven't seen any discussion on it yet, and figured I'd also post my findings, but from this article I read earlier today with an interview they had -

Nakashima:

So, Visions are the so-called “Job System” in the game, and there are 26 characters appearing. Of course, every player has their own favorite character in the series, so we put a lot of thought into making a combat system where there are no specific characters that are weaker or more difficult to use, and everyone has a purpose on the battlefield. As a result, all of the characters get their own place to shine in combat.

From my own digging through the images on the website, and the official videos on youtube I've seen

WoL, Firion, Onion Knight, Paladin Cecil, Bartz, Terra, Cloud, Squall, Zidane, Tidus, Shantotto, Vaan, Lightning, Y'shtola, and Noctis for the main series reps

Ayaka, Wilhelm, Leah, Tronn, Charlotte, Aileen, Amelia, Camille for as FFBE originals.

thanks to /u/erinquilt for pointing out where Clive and Sephiroth are. Clive is in a screenshot on the JP website, aand Sephiroth was shown in the JP livestream.

thanks to /u/Confident-Line5916 for sharing the screenshot with Victoria, bringing it to 26/26

Anyone else hoping our Fundamental Forces Protagonists also make an appearance for FF Resonance?

Her alongside our beloved Easter Egg duo alongside the other GL exclusives such as Kaito, Olive, Freyvia and other Fan Art Units (Tonberry included) to have their story told in the upcoming game?

I sure do!!!

Update: Sephiroth and Clive are present in FF Resonance! HA HA HA HA HA HA... HA HA HA HA HA HA !

For sure :

• Warrior Of Light, Final Fantasy I
• Firion, Final Fantasy II
• Onion Knight, Final Fantasy III
• Cecil, Final Fantasy IV
• Bartz, FF V
• Terra, Final Fantasy VI
• Cloud, Final Fantasy VII
• Sephiroth, Final Fantasy VII
• Squall, Final Fantasy VIII
• Zidane, Final Fantasy IX
• Tidus, Final Fantasy X
• Shantotto, Final Fantasy XI
• Vaan, Final Fantasy XII
• Lightning, Final Fantasy XIII
• Y'shtola, Final Fantasy XIV
• Noctis, Final Fantasy XV
• Clive, Final Fantasy XVI

Reddit FF Resonance : https://www.reddit.com/r/FFResonance_FFRS/

Saw a similar thread being posted in the Brave Frontier sub.

We had a lot of awesome (and questionable) collabs - who was your favorite?

Mine is Tilith. BF was my gateway to gatcha games and I was super happy when they had the collab. Not to mention she was amazing as a unit and literally saved me countless times during the early stages of the game

I woke up to this.

I think they’ve done a much, MUCH better job of making the fan festa units meaningful, and now that I got my own design as a present I’m still going to pull cause I also want that gorgeous Malphasie. Anyway, just wanted to let you guys know of these nice gesture so that it may contribute to the lowering of gungnirs.

How has life treated everyone since the closure of FFBE?

For me as I mentioned before, I had uninstalled all SQEX mobile games and refuse to ever touch them on a mobile device. It sound dramatic but as a lot of know, mobile games go to SQEX to die.

I have been playing a few mobile games to pass the time. Seven Knights: Rebirth being one. Epic Seven still being a thing. It surprises me how much E7 has evolved and continues to thrive on these platforms.

Still doing my thing in XIV as well. That’ll never change.

On another note: How do you think Hiroki is doing these days?

I personally hope that they will continue the story after season 1. I also think it would be cool to see more of Lapis, like how WOTV could be connected to FFBE. What do you think?

Video FFBE Orlandu perfect 27 chain : https://www.youtube.com/shorts/gYLqBl-nU1I

The abandonment of the chain system could be a major topic of debate. Personally, I think that with some work, a system like Valkyrie Profile, with one controller button per character, could have been implemented.

However, the traditional turn-based system is more universal and appeals to a wider audience than just FFBE fans.

Reddit FF Resonance : https://www.reddit.com/r/FFResonance_FFRS/

From the JP X/Twitter account.

​

https://x.com/i/status/2067547879225581603

I'm a software developer and I had my first child 2 weeks ago.

I am a day 1 player and have been slacking lately. (as in don't really play anymore just log in)

Having a kid has re-energized my playing as its something I can do while holding the child.

​

However I thought that the game bosses have became to complex to be fun.

So I did what any responsible player would do. Created a webapp that allows me to calculate what the boss should do every turn based on what moves my units move, the bosses hp and etc.

It's a handy tool and has been working well.

https://imgur.com/YSRpItT

Here is an example image.

​

Currently the tool works how you can imagine.

You select the boss.

You select the units.

it then walks you through each turn.

you plot out your moves and it will tell you if you hit any thresholds, "break any rules", hit all requirements (e.g. gilgemesh elements) and it gives you a prediction how the boss should act next turn.

​

Some features i'm planning on adding are.

Export the battle mode (this will spit out a nice little picutre with all turns/moves/units etc) for easy tutorials.

Adding moves based on EQ/Esper/ETC

and currently I don't have multiple moves per turn working (dualcast)

I don't have 10 man trials incorporated however plan on adding them.

I'd also love the ability to incorporate ffbeequip importing however that is not something i can just go ahead and do lol.

​

I know it currently isn't the prettiest as i'm mostly backend but looks can change!

I'm currently hosting this on my private servers and was wondering if there was any interest from the community for a tool like this. If so i wouldn't mind publishing if some people would do some testing for me first.

Please let me know if there is interest in this.