Final Fantasy Tactics' Matsuno Returns to Directing with Lost Order

Final Fantasy Tactics, Vagrant Story, and Final Fantasy XII director Yasumi Matsuno is finally directing a game again. During the Cygames Next event in Tokyo, Cygames and Platinum Games announced Lost Order for Android and iOS.

Lost Order is a real-time tactics title that will be directed by Matsuno, produced by Cygames' Yuito Kimura and Platinum's Atsushi Inaba. The art duties on the game will be handled by Cygames' Akihiko Yoshida, who previously did art for Tactics Ogre and Bravely Default, while the soundtrack will handled by Noisycroak's Hideki Sakamoto.

Lost Order is set in the ruins of the capital of Gold Heaven and feature for primary characters. There's actual gameplay screenshots for the title, depicting the characters on a freeform Phantom Brave-style battlefield. No official release date for Lost Order was announced.

Matsuno's last major project was Final Fantasy XII, a game where he left the director's chair mid-production. He joined Level-5 in 2011, designing Crimson Shroud for 3DS before leaving a year later. The false start previously mentioned came in the form of Matsuno's name being attached to Unsung Story: Tale of the Guardians. Matsuno was intended to pen the game's story, in addition to helping out with game design, but the project ultimately stalled earlier this year. It later resumed production, but there's no indication of when Unsung Story will release and it's clear that Matsuno himself has moved on.

We may never see Lost Order on Western shores, as most of Cygames' titles do not get localized. Many of their titles are for smartphone or browser platforms and of those, only Rage of Bahamut has been brought over by its publisher DeNA. One of the developer's more popular titles, Granblue Fantasy, actually was officially localized in English, but still only has a Japanese release.

It's possible that Cygames will expand with more English releases in the future, but currently the studio is busy working on some console releases: Granblue Fantasy Project Re: Link and Project Awakening.