Final Fantasy Resonance is a retooling of Final Fantasy Brave Exvius, a gacha game that Square Enix shut down in 2024. The game featured several characters from across the RPG series’ history, but it also had a handful of real pop stars make guest appearances as summonable units, including Katy Perry, Addison Rae, and perhaps most famously, Ariana Grande. So because I’m gay and annoying, when I sat down to talk about Resonance with producer Keisuke Nakashima and director Hiroto Furuya, I had to ask if Ms. Glinda herself would be showing up in the new game. Sorry arianators, it sounds like she, along with several other characters from Brave Exvius, won’t be making an appearance this time around.
According to Nakashima, the team at Square Enix’s Team Asano, which is also responsible for games like Octopath Traveler, Triangle Strategy, and Bravely Default, has curated a list of “visions,” or assist characters from previous Final Fantasy games that act as secondary party members in Resonance, rather than bringing back the over 2000 that Brave Exvius had when it was shut down in 2024. When deciding which characters would make an appearance in Resonance, Nakashima tells Kotaku that the team looked at abilities, balance, and personality. So while most of the series’ protagonists are showing up, there are also a handful of secondary characters to be found along the way, and that’s it. The team has no plans to expand that list in the future with any additional content or DLC.
“Even though this is a Final Fantasy title, we’re part of Team Asano,” Nakashima tells Kotaku through a translator. “And so, we also have been working with members of Team Asano for feedback and also the general culture within the team. One thing that Team Asano titles prioritize is that, we want to make sure that the core experience is the best they could possibly be. So instead of thinking about DLC and additional content from the get-go, we’re trying to put all of our dev time into making sure that the base game is the best it can be.”
Though I was pretty sure I already knew the answer, I asked specifically if Grande’s characters, which included four summonable units based on some of her looks in music videos and album art, might be making a return, Nakashima said, “Unfortunately no.”
“It’s also part of the worldview, you know?” he says. “Ariana Grande’s character would not fit within the vibe that we’ve created for Final Fantasy Resonance.”
Resonance is coming to Switch, Switch 2, PS5, PC, and Xbox Series X/S on October 22.