While the closure of GRIN was sad for many reasons, some of you may have been disappointed never to have seen the company's Final Fantasy project, which we believe is the Fortress game seen in this concept art. Based on word from "sources close to both [GRIN and Square Enix]," GamesIndustry.biz reports that the game is actually still in development -- though obviously no longer by GRIN. So, assuming this new developer finishes the game, you'll get to see GRIN's "unreleased masterpiece" after all. Kind of.
In fact, according to the report, GRIN was removed from Fortress after six months due to "quality issues," which means that the game was in someone else's hands before the studio shut down. The loss of the Fortress job may then have contributed to GRIN's financial troubles.
Final Fantasy could be developed outside Japan
Speaking in a recent interview, president of Square Enix Yoichi Wada conceded that Final Fantasy might make its way into the hands of Western developers in the future.
Initially, when quizzed about other Japanese publishers farming out some of their big franchises like Silent Hill and Dead Rising, Wada was quite coy.
He said: "That is one of the possible paths, but it's not something that we would shift completely over to."
When pushed a bit harder he did concede that the seminal JRPG series might make it into Western hands. He continued: "There is always a possibility that Final Fantasy could be produced with the input of our Western developers, overseen by our Japanese developers."
