"Breath of Fire IV" was developed by Capcom Development Studio 3, which contained many of the same staff members who produced "Breath of Fire III", including director Makoto Ikehara, and character artist Tatsuya Yoshikawa, who provided designs for the game's hand-drawn sprites. In May 1999 industry rumors began speculating that the title would appear on the PlayStation 2 console when Capcom's Yoshiki Okamoto remarking that their next role-playing game would be a "giant project" that would make use of the system's network capabilities. The following July, however, it was confirmed that the game would instead be heading to the original PlayStation, with development having been underway for "some time" beforehand, and was officially unveiled in an issue of Japanese "Weekly Famitsu" magazine the same month. Due to time constraints, some intended features were not included in the final release of the game, including a scenario that would have involved defeating Yuna, an antagonist who otherwise lives in the end. The title would appear at the 2000 Tokyo Game Show trade show in Japan, and would later be released in the region the following April.