Times have drastically changed in the two decades since Danny Boyle and Alex Garland delivered the most gripping apocalyptic horror thriller ever made, and changed the zombie genre forever. When 28 Days Later was released, the zombies had only ever been slow, camcorders were the cutting edge of technology, and the idea of a global pandemic that brought the world’s nations to a halt seemed like something out of science fiction. Now, that science fiction has become reality.

To say the COVID-19 pandemic played a huge part in getting Boyle and Garland back to make the long-awaited sequel 28 Years Later is not an exaggeration. “Obviously one of the things we thought about was about the way that COVID, when it first hit us all and we kind of panicked into the behavior we were told to do... led us to think [how] we began to get accustomed [to that life],” Boyle tells Inverse.

“Our behavior relaxed and changed,” he continues. “And that made us think of 28 Years.”

But never one to rest on his laurels, Boyle wasn’t interested in making a movie like all the other zombie movies that had become so prolific in Hollywood. Boyle is intensely aware of how oversaturated the pop culture landscape has become with zombie movies and shows since 28 Days Later came out, and that inspired him and Garland to take 28 Years Later in a different direction than the previous sequel had set them up for. Instead of spreading to continental Europe, the Rage Virus has been contained to the U.K. mainland, which has remained under quarantine. Survivors have been left to fend for themselves. The world outside has moved on. Boyle was more interested in exploring what an apocalyptic world contained on the British mainland would look like. “Nature finds a way to survive. That felt like a really useful ingredient,” Boyle says.

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Nearly two decades ago, Final Fantasy Tactics pushed the franchise in a bold new direction, a dramatic politically-charged strategic RPG. To this day, Tactics remains one of the most beloved entries in the hallowed franchise, and it’s a testament to the strength of the story and writing that many people still talk about it as one of the most thematically ambitious games ever made.

Its themes of inequality and social structure had a shockingly timely message in 1997 — but that’s a message that feels more important in modern day.

“At the time, between the 1980s to early 1990s, stories in games were mostly about ‘good versus evil’, where heroes defeat demon lords who threatened world peace. Since I was a student, I’ve always loved historical plays and tragedies, such as those written by Shakespeare,” Final Fantasy Tactics creator and scenario writer Yasumi Matsuno tells Inverse, “It was during that time that I felt that these techniques commonly employed in movies and novels could be brought into games, and I was convinced that this was a chance to expand the possibilities of storytelling in games.”

Despite its legacy, Final Fantasy Tactics has languished in obscurity for years, with no way to play the game outside of an original PS1 copy or one of the PSP remake, War of the Lions. With The Ivalice Chronicles, Tactics is finally coming back — giving an entirely new generation the chance to experience one of the most influential RPGs ever made.

Inverse had the chance to talk to Matsuno and director Kazutoyo Maehiro, learning about the game’s lasting legacy, narrative themes, and a potential future for the beloved spinoff.