"Grandia III" was first announced in a March 2005 issue of Japanese "Weekly Famitsu" magazine, which revealed that Game Arts and Square Enix would be bringing the game to the PlayStation 2 console like the previous installment, "Grandia Xtreme". The project was headed by director Hidenobu Takahashi, who previously served as art director for "Grandia II", and stated that the game would follow the series' themes of "adventure, drama and dreams", and would continue in the direction of taking the series to a more "adult" sensibility while still retaining an overall optimistic tone. Character design for the game was provided by You Yoshinari with Takahiro Hasebe serving as scenario writer, both of whom had worked on the original "Grandia". CGI movie cutscenes were placed in the game help advance the story, which were produced by Mikitaka Kurasawa who had also worked with Capcom on "". According to a Square Enix representative, the amount of cutscenes in the game are roughly equal in length to three movies. Combat in "Grandia III" was designed to be a variation of the system seen in previous games in the series, and was described by Takahashi as being "very complex but very easy to learn", adding that "The combination of the story, fast-paced battle system and beautiful environment will prove to be an extremely enjoyable adventure." An official website was launched for the game in April 2005, which detailed the game's final release date the following August, as well as offered updates on the game's mechanics and characters.