A lost piece of Final Fantasy VII lore has been brought back to life by preservationist Yuvi, who spent over $900 and utilized a farm of more than 90 GPUs to restore the mobile game Dirge of Cerberus Lost Episode -Final Fantasy VII-. The game, originally released in 2006 for the Amp’d Mobile cellphone network, became unplayable when Square Enix shut down its servers in 2018.
Yuvi acquired the game's files on an encrypted SD card in 2024 and spent two years attempting to find the necessary decryption keys. Frustrated by the slow progress, Yuvi decided to accelerate the process by building a GPU farm, employing a mix of high-end graphics cards including RTX 4090s, A4000s, A4500s, A5000s, RTX 6000s, and H200s. This powerful setup allowed the decryption task, initially projected to take months, to be completed in just a couple of days.
The successful restoration means a working copy of the game now exists, with Yuvi sharing video evidence of the restored title on their YouTube channel. Dirge of Cerberus Lost Episode was a fully voiced mobile game that has been inaccessible since 2018.
This effort highlights the ongoing challenges of preserving older digital media, particularly mobile games that relied on server infrastructure. While this specific title is now playable, other lost Final Fantasy mobile games, such as Before Crisis Final Fantasy VII, remain inaccessible. Square Enix has acknowledged the value of these spinoffs, with elements of Dirge of Cerberus' story integrated into the Final Fantasy VII remake trilogy. Director Naoki Hamaguchi has also indicated plans to incorporate more lore from these less-explored titles into Final Fantasy XIV: Revelation.