While visual novels had a high leeway for dialogue quantity, Asano would make requests such as a sentence being within a 22-character limit, and to not overrun into multiple dialogue boxes. Several video clips demonstrating the work in progress were shown, though few details were available. The happiness is short-lived when they find the Great Chasm still there as Airy gloats of manipulating them. Two years prior to the game's announcement on Christmas Day 2017, character designer Akihiko Yoshida posted an image on Twitter of Edea holding a pair of Joy-Con controllers. During this initial phase, the original development team reached out to Silicon Studio, whose previous work was mostly related to development middleware.

The western release has been modified with characters' outfits made less revealing and some characters have been aged a couple years compared to the Japanese game. Bravely Default is a role-playing video game which features a party of four characters navigating the fantasy world of Luxendarc.Agnès refuses help from Tiz as she believes that facing adversity on her own is part of her responsibility as vestal. Turning to Sage Yulyana in the Yulyana Region for help, Agnès is directed to the Vestment Cave where the party defeats a dragon guarding the rainbow thread, which is necessary for remaking the vestal garb. The fourth demo, released in August, featured the character Ringabel and demonstrated the job and character customization systems. Nearly all of the Eternian elite they face were taken in by Braev out of compassion as they were rejected by the Orthodoxy, and Yulyana and DeRosso are revealed to be Braev's allies and key figures in cleansing the Orthodoxy of its corruption.

The party eventually reaches Eternia, the home of the Earth Crystal, and are forced to defeat the Duchy's leader, Edea's father Braev Lee in battle. After a Great Chasm suddenly tears the earth apart, the world of Luxendarc is plunged into darkness. With Ringabel covering up the true nature of Tiz and Agnès meeting, the group reluctantly enacts the Holy Pillar once more with the hope of atoning for their actions.

The new “Brave and Default” and “Bravely Second” systems set the stage for even more strategies, allowing you to disrupt the flow of traditional turn-based battles by attacking multiple times in a single turn – or even freezing time. According to producer Tomoya Asano, Bravely Default began development as a sequel to Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light (2009), and would have been part of the Final Fantasy franchise. With access to Grandship and the Eschalot, the group reaches each of the temples while dealing with stronger versions of the evil monsters possessing them. The summoning text initially shared fonts with other elements, but as Asano wanted it to have more impact, a more florid font was used. It sounds like a lot, and it is, but not in an overwhelming way but in a fantastic, three in the morning, I can’t stop playing this game kind of way.