# A lost Final Fantasy 7 game has just been saved 20 years after its release, though it cost one preservationist $900

- URL: https://talkfuse.com/story/a-lost-final-fantasy-7-game-has-just-been-saved-20-years-after-its-release-though-it-cost-one-preservationist-900/
- Published: 2026-08-09T14:31:56+00:00
- Updated: 2026-08-09T15:07:38+00:00
- Original publisher: GamesRadar+
- Original article: https://www.gamesradar.com/games/final-fantasy/a-lost-final-fantasy-7-game-has-just-been-saved-20-years-after-its-release-though-it-cost-one-preservationist-usd900/
- Topics: Entertainment, Gaming

## Key points

- A lost 2006 Final Fantasy VII mobile game has been fully preserved.
- Encrypted SD-card data required a costly GPU-based recovery effort.
- The recovery protects a game stranded on obsolete mobile technology.

## Summary

The long-inaccessible mobile game Dirge of Cerberus: Lost Episode – Final Fantasy VII has reportedly been fully preserved, around 20 years after its 2006 release. The recovery matters because the title, a mobile spin-off connected to Final Fantasy VII, had become unplayable after its service shut down and was tied to obsolete Japanese feature-phone technology.

Feature-phone preservationist Yuvi recovered the game from an original SD card containing encrypted data, then used a large GPU setup to brute-force the required keys. The process reportedly took about three days of computing and cost more than $900, allowing the complete game—not merely its previously archived demo—to be saved.

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Summarised by TalkFuse (https://talkfuse.com/). Quote the original publisher for the reporting and link this page for the summary and discussion.