Late last year, Wizards of the Coast announced in a Hasbro earnings report that we would soon be getting Secret Lair crossovers with Assassin's Creed and Final Fantasy. While I'm not too terribly well versed in the former, Final Fantasy has been a major influence in my life and has provided me with a tremendous amount of incredible gaming experiences. Because of this, I couldn't help predict just how they'd go about covering Final Fantasy in a set of Secret Lairs. I even did a whole write up about this soon after, which you can read here.

Then at GenCon, we got the full reveal of sets coming up through 2026 and found out something incredible: the Final Fantasy crossover wasn't just going to be Secret Lairs! In fact, it's going to be a whole tentpole release similar to Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-Earth which implies it's going to be an entire set! This changes things up drastically. When it comes to talking about a small handful of Secret Lairs, it's a lot easier to discuss and speculate on. Which games will be covered and which characters will be represented? Will they do mechanically unique cards or do special reskins? Will there be special treatments and how will they be represented?

This is because the number of cards presented are so much smaller with just a few Secret Lairs versus an entire set. Now that we know there's a full set in the works, there's way more to talk about now. This is especially true given that we now know one particular detail: every single mainline Final Fantasy game from the original Final Fantasy to Final Fantasy XVI (16) is going to be represented here. That's an enormous breadth of scope for them to cover! They didn't explicitly rule out side games either, so for all we know we might see stuff from titles like Final Fantasy Tactics or Vagrant Story - both of which take place in the world of Ivalice that's the setting for Final Fantasy XII.

The set doesn't release until 2025 - likely in the summer if it's similar to Tales of Middle-earth - but I can't help but feel this warrants another look. When I examined it before, it was just Secret Lairs and was more about how they were going to do them. With this, there's so much more to pull from and discuss, from characters to mechanics. So today I'm going to examine certain elements of what I think is safe to expect from the set when it drops. Let's get to it!

Characters

Above everything else, the biggest and most clear draw to a set based around a series like Final Fantasy is the immense catalog of characters to dive into. In fact, with a series like Final Fantasy, there are so many characters to choose from that it almost seems like a fool's errand to try and squeeze them all into a single set. The recent Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth set and the attached Commander release featured 121 legendary creatures per a quick search on Scryfall. From among these 121 creatures, many were represented multiple times, up to five times in the case of both Gandalf and Aragorn.

Now let's compare this to Final Fantasy. I pulled up a Final Fantasy Wiki webpage and found the character list for what is arguably the game's most famous game in the series: Final Fantasy VII. On that page, there are over 100 listed characters, though I'd argue this could be whittled down to about 30-40 based on greater relevance to the game's plot. That's just one game too, and it only gets wilder from there. Consider Final Fantasy VI, which boasts a playable cast alone of 14 different characters as well as the many others you don't get to play as, or the absolute myriad of characters in the likes of the Massive Multiplayer Online RPG titles of Final Fantasy XI and Final Fantasy XIV which have more characters than I dare to try rattle off.

Because of this, I imagine we'll by and large see different characters be represented with only a single version each this time around. I think they'll give a couple notable fan favorites two cards, with one in the main set and another in Commander decks (Kefka, Cloud, Sephiroth, and Vivi come to mind quickly) but for the most part, there will be a bunch of one-offs. A couple additional exceptions will probably be made in instances where there are multiple games with characters of the same name, notably the various Cids of the franchise. As much as I'd love to see FFXI Cid and his horrifying mouth (FFXI Cid isn't real, he can't hurt you), I'd expect more to see the Cids from IV, VII, and maybe XII.

With them going all the way from the first game up to the newest, I wouldn't be surprised if we get some deep cuts either. Sure, you'll get your Lightnings, your Tiduses, and your Tifas, but it'd be great to see those like Hilda from FFII who sets the party on their adventure (and maybe a Wild Rose card somewhere in the mix as well) or perhaps Dalan of FFXII. It'd be amusing to see Tiamat - who was one of the four main enemies of the first title - get used in a much different manner than the version we saw in Adventures in the Forgotten Realm. I even used this as an inspiration when writing an article on AFR Tiamat a few years back, and it would be extremely interesting to see both in the same world together.

The point is, the well here is deep and there's absolutely no shortage of areas they can pull from. We're going to see a dizzying number of characters show up and no matter who your favorite is, odds are high you're going to see at least a few you love.

Mechanics

Mechanics are where things probably get a bit weird and a bit interesting. Final Fantasy is a series of RPGs and has some pretty obvious mainstays that continually appear time and again throughout the series. Some work well for Magic while others might not necessarily.

For example, equipment is an easy choice. It's one of the absolute cornerstones of the Final Fantasy series. You use your various weapons, armor, and accessories to buff up your characters and push them through the game. Many are more iconic than others, such as Cloud's Buster Sword, Sephiroth's Masamune, Tidus' Brotherhood, and many more. Ultima/Ultimate Weapon and Genji armor set show up in most games as well in some form or fashion, making for some obvious choices.

Similarly, there's vehicles. This one is a bit more limited in scope, because there aren't too many times most players will experience dealing with vehicles in different games. However, there's some that are far too iconic to ignore. Airships are an absolute mainstay of the series, and while chocobos might be better as creatures, they generally serve as methods of speedy transportation in most games. There's also the Regalia, the car your party drives around in throughout Final Fantasy XV or the submarine you get to utilize in Final Fantasy VII. Plenty of great options to choose from on this front, even if it's less than the equipment side of things.

I also imagine we'll get a couple of new mechanics as well. The first I predict is something utilizing limit breaks. This shows up in multiple Final Fantasy games, albeit under a variety of different names. It started in VI as a sort of desperation move, but really came into its own in VII. IX had Trance, X had Overdrives, XI had weapon skills, XII had Quickenings, etc. It's a staple of the franchise and would be cool to see something inventive done that reflects this element. I'd bet something involving counters that get removed for a powerful effect on a select number of cards.

I'd also bet heavily on summons being a thing. This one feels a little weird because on one hand they could be their own creatures. In later games especially, they have a tendency to stick around in the battle where you the player control them. However, in many games, they were used in short bursts and had powerful one-shot effects. I wouldn't be surprised to see them go this route as a means of differentiating them more from legendary creatures, which will be a space that's already bound to be stuffed full.

Now how about something I don't think they'll touch: materia. I've heard it come up a bit since it's a naturally popular element of how the most popular title in the series, Final Fantasy VII, played. Materia are magical orbs you'd equip to party members to allow them to use magic, and other games had similar methods of granting magic but weren't called materia. I feel like this is too narrow and hard to implement, and instead we'll simply see actual spells such as Cure, Firaga, and Ultima instead.

This is all merely scratching the surface of possibilities, talking up a couple options I see as potentials once the set gets closer. As flavorful and thematic as it might be to make Level Up cards, it's unlikely they'll reappear again due to design constraints per card. I would however expect to see the old Class cards from Adventures in the Forgotten Realm make a comeback to focus on the jobs (which are Final Fantasy's name for classes) such as Warrior, White Mage, Black Mage, Thief, Dragoon, Summoner, and more. Tons of possibilities out there to pull from, new and old alike!

Card Treatments

If there's one thing that Wizards has loved implementing over the last several years, it's the myriad of various card treatments. With Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth, we saw three primary forms of special treatments: Ring Showcase treatments, borderless scene art treatments, and general borderless arts not related to a greater scene. In the case of Final Fantasy, I don't necessarily think we'll get a repeat of the scene arts, despite the fact that they make for a great visual angle. It's a possibility, but I think there's far less sequences featuring characters and enemies all in one space to make it work compared to critical aspects of the Lord of the Rings story.

Instead, I think we'll see simply what I predicted in my original Secret Lair piece: it will focus on pixel art and the works of the renowned Yoshitaka Amano. In the case of the latter, this is quite simple. Amano is well known for his work on the series from its inception, bringing to the game a large amount of critical concept art that crafted the visual backbone of the game's characters, monsters, vehicles, and settings. Even when Tetsuya Nomura took over as character designer for Final Fantasy VII, Amano continued producing pieces over the years and you can find art pieces of his for games all the way through Final Fantasy XV (likely the new XVI as well, though I've been unable to find anything on a quick search). He can also be brought in to do additional new pieces as well, or they can simply refer to it as "borderless concept art treatment" allowing them to use Nomura's work as well.

As for the pixel art, this is a no brainer. The games utilized a traditional pixelated style all the way up through Final Fantasy VI and it's remained a beloved aspect of the series brand. It's not hard to go through gaming websites, stores, or conventions and not run into a Final Fantasy pixel sprite depicted somewhere throughout. Recently parent company Square-Enix re-released those first six titles under the Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters banner, hyping up the classic pixel style the fans loved. Additionally, Square-Enix has created newer games that have even created pixelated versions of how later series characters might look to fit aesthetics of specific mash-up titles, or else go for a cute chibi look inspired by those original pixel designs.

Both of these styles are absolutely in line with what I'd expect from Square-Enix and feel comparable to what we saw on the actual Final Fantasy card game. We'll likely get some new specialty art unrelated to either treatment as well if I had to guess (can't rely entirely on old-school art assets, after all), but it'd feel foolish to not pull from such an obvious well of fan favorites here. It'll be particularly interesting to see what they do in this regard once we get there.

Commander Reprints

This last one is kind of fun and a bit speculative. One of my favorite parts of Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth was easily the way the set did Commander reprints. Many got amazing new artwork that better reflected the world of Lord of the Rings, and I think it largely did so in spectacular fashion. It was a common sight on Twitter to see people gawking at the incredible pieces for classic cards showing amazing new artwork that was clear in its fresh flavoring.

There are so many great moments in Final Fantasy that could be used for something like this. Doom Blade could represent a certain critical moment in Final Fantasy VII or Path to Exile might represent The Sending - a ritual to put spirits to rest in Final Fantasy X by sending them to the Farplane. There's goblins that can be utilized for great one-off reprints and it would be an absolute crime to not see a reprint of Battle at the Bridge that didn't feature Gilgamesh from Final Fantasy V. Time Warp or something similar would be a perfect reference for the first game as well, referencing the time loop that allows Chaos to reign over the land.

Each of these are merely brief ideas I was able to think of off the top of my head. There's bound to be several more and it's going to be incredible what new flavor and arts are utilized to really bring out the wonder of this set. I imagine this - as well as the characters themselves - will generate some of the biggest talking points when preview season finally rolls around. Said preview season won't be for quite a while, however, as this set doesn't release until 2025.

In the meantime, I hope you enjoyed this little look into certain things I feel like could show up in this set. Final Fantasy is one of the key series that made me into the gamer I am today. I used to run my own fan sites, hunt down rare titles in the series, and even once tried my hand at making my own Magic cards themed around the series. I was obsessed and still am. It has me beyond excited to see what's yet to come and the nearly two year wait is going to be downright agonizing. What I do know, though, is that when it does come around, I can't wait to talk it up with you all again.

Just make sure you save the Sephiroth cards for me.

Paige Smith

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