Square Enix announced yesterday that they’re working on an HD release of Final Fantasy 8 for the PC. While a release date and the addition of any fancy extras have yet to be announced, the HD spruce up is itself enough of a tempter to have me picking up a copy.
The Final Fantasy series has long been firmly in the domain of console-dom, only playable on the PC through ROMs and emulators (an arcane art itself), or sub-par ports. Yet in the past year Square Enix have shown a much friendlier turn towards the PC. First they announced that Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn would be a cross-platform release on the Playstation and PC, then they went and released Final Fantasy VII on our fair machine – adding fancy extras like Steam achievements and cloud saves.
An HD release of Final Fantasy VIII marks a much more determined effort for porting the Final Fantasy back catalogue. This isn’t a simple port but a team going back and reworking all of the original art in the game, bringing the power of the modern computer to bear on its aged engine. It would make sense, too, that Square Enix would add achievements and cloud saves during the process.
When we learn about the game’s release date we’ll let you know.