Overview

In Breath of Fire IV, the world is divided between two massive continents ruled by two empires: the Western Fou Empire and the Eastern Kingdoms. After countless years of exhaustive warring, the factions reach an armistice. A year later, Princess Elina of Wyndia mysteriously vanishes during a goodwill visit to the wartorn city of Synesta.

Elina’s sister, Princess Nina, sets out with her close friend and bodyguard Cray, a Woren chief, in search of her. Their trek across the Great Desert is interrupted by an enormous Sand Dragon, which causes their sandflier to crash. Nina sets out alone to look for parts to fix it. Soon after, she comes across an enormous crater formed by a dragon, which flies up and dissipates into the air like a spirit. In its place appears a man who is none other than Ryu. Ryu, having no recollection of who he is or where he’s going, accompanies Nina to the desert village of Sarai.

Meanwhile, within a tomb in the Fou Empire, an ancient god emperor named Fou-Lu reawakens from a long slumber, and sets out for the Capital to reclaim his throne. As Ryu, Nina, and Cray continue their journey to search for Elina, they’ll make new friends, encounter numerous adversaries, and seek out the truth concerning Ryu’s true purpose and his mysterious connection to Fou-Lu.

Highlights in Breath of Fire IV include:

Development History

On May 6, 1999, it was initially rumored by the media, based on comments made by then-executive producer Yoshiki Okamoto, that a fourth Breath of Fire game would appear as a PlayStation 2 game with network capabilities.¹ On July 28, 1999, it was then reported to not be the case, and Breath of Fire IV: Utsurowazaru Mono (“うつろわざるもの” which translates to “The Unfading Ones” and was localized as “The Endless”) was officially confirmed to be well into development and would release on the original PlayStation.²

Breath of Fire IV shared many of the same development staff as Breath of Fire III. Breath of Fire III Director Makoto Ikehara returned as director and scenario writer for Breath of Fire IV, with Breath of Fire III promotional producer Hironobu Takeshita returning as the main producer. Tatsuya Yoshikawa returned as the character and graphic designer and was joined by a team of nine 2D graphic designers and three 3D character graphics designers. Both Takeshita and Ikehara noted the graphics team’s uncompromising attention to detail, and revealed every main character would have 3,000 unique animation frames.³ Yoshino Aoki, who co-composed Breath of Fire III, would return as the lead composer of Breath of Fire IV, giving the game a score influenced by classical and world/folk music. Aoki arranged a classical piece by Maurice Ravel in a specific cutscene of the game, and also sung the game’s ending theme, “After the Dream”.

As a first for the series, an opening animation plays prior to the title screen. The music for this sequence was composed by Taro Iwashiro, with Breath of Fire III voice actors Kappei Yamaguchi and Kyoko Hikami returning to reprise their voice roles as Ryu and Nina, respectively.

Dengeki PlayStation magazine would collaborate with the development team and solicit ideas from readers for potential weapons, armor, items, and accessories to be adapted for use in the game. Readers were encouraged to mail their ideas to the magazine by November 30, 1999. Winners of this contest would have their idea featured and their name added to the game’s credits. Additionally, Dengeki PlayStation revealed a future demo disc included with their magazine would unlock an additional shop within the game.⁴ In the January 14, 2000 issue of Dengeki PlayStation, four winners were chosen, and their ideas were confirmed to be obtainable in-game through the unlockable Dengeki Store.⁵

On February 9, 2000, Capcom USA confirmed a North American release of Breath of Fire IV, initially sharing a September 2000 release window.⁶ Capcom would feature Breath of Fire IV: Utsurowazaru Mono in their game lineup during the Tokyo Game Show 2000 Spring convention, which was held from March 31 – April 2, 2000.⁷⁸

Breath of Fire IV: Utsurowazaru Mono would launch in Japan on PlayStation on April 27, 2000.⁹ The July 21, 2000 issue of Dengeki PlayStation issue 147 included a demo disc allowing Japanese players to transfer a pre-patched save file to access the in-game Dengeki Store.

Little is publicly known about the English localization process for Breath of Fire IV, however it is assumed the game’s localization was under an incredibly tight schedule. The game’s Japanese logo remained in the North American title screen, and no subtitles were provided for the opening Japanese animation. A few minor cutscenes and one major segment of a cutscene were edited out of the game. The Dengeki Store, while present in the disc data, could not be unlocked, and the character Scias’s text-heavy “Identify” scanning skill was removed.¹⁰

Breath of Fire IV launched in North America on PlayStation on November 29, 2000.¹¹ On May 9, 2001, Capcom Europe, then known as Capcom Eurosoft, would confirm a European PlayStation release that year.¹² It finally released in Europe in early August 2001.¹³¹⁴ This marked the first time a European Breath of Fire title release was fully published by Capcom.

On September 12, 2002, Breath of Fire IV: Utsurowazaru Mono was reissued in Japan with a budget price under PlayStation’s “The Best” label, which was reserved for top selling popular titles.¹⁵

On October 17, 2002, it was revealed by Capcom Europe that the English version of Breath of Fire IV would be ported to PC sometime in February 2003.¹⁶ It ultimately released in Europe within March 2003.¹⁷ A Japanese PC version of Breath of Fire IV was announced by Capcom on February 7, 2003. It was subsequently released under the “Otoku PC Value Series” budget label on May 30, 2003.¹⁸¹⁹ The PC version featured shorter load times, a different text font, and a bilinear smoothing filter applied to the 3D environments and 2D character sprites. The PC version of Breath of Fire IV was rated by the ESRB in North America, but a release there never materialized.²⁰

The Traditional Chinese version of Breath of Fire IV, localized as 龍戰士4 (Long Zhanshi 4, aka “The Dragon Warrior 4”) for PC was translated by Taiwanese game company Dysin Interactive Corp. and distributed by Acer TWP Corp.²¹ It released in Asia on June 9, 2003.²² A Simplified Chinese language version localized as 龙战士4 was distributed by Ubisoft Shanghai Studio on July 15, 2003.²³

On July 8, 2005, the Japanese PC release of Breath of Fire IV: Utsurowazaru Mono was reissued with the “SourceNext Selection” and “Quality1980” labels and sold both physically and digitally directly from SourceNext Corporation’s website.²⁴

On May 27, 2011, Capcom USA Senior Vice President Christian Svensson confirmed Breath of Fire IV cleared an intellectual property review and shared a summer release timeframe for a digital release of the game on PlayStation Network (PSN).²⁵ On July 6, 2011, Breath of Fire IV: Utsurowazaru Mono was released on PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable’s PSN store in Japan under the Game Archives program.²⁶ A North American PSN PSone Classics release, along with 10 purchasable Breath of Fire IV character avatars, followed on August 16, 2011.²⁷ For reasons unknown, a digital PSone Classics release of Breath of Fire IV was never made available in Europe.

In 2012, the PC version of Breath of Fire IV was added to the community wishlist at Good Old Games (GOG), with users able to vote in support of a re-release.²⁸ On January 29, 2025, this wishlist entry was migrated to the GOG Dreamlist. GOG publicly recognized the game’s growing upvotes on GOG Dreamlist, encouraging users to continue upvoting and sharing their stories about the game.²⁹

On April 24, 2025, GOG teased an image of a silhouetted character on their social media pages, alluding to Ryu’s back-facing sprite from Breath of Fire IV.³⁰ GOG subsequently announced and re-released Breath of Fire IV on GOG the next day, on April 25, 2025.³¹ This digital re-release included the English and Japanese language versions of the 2003 PC port, along with additional optimizations, such as Windows 10/11 compatibility, controller and vibration support, and several bug fixes.

Massive thanks to @ravilesmana for assistance with the Breath of Fire IV release date research.

Sources