Final Fantasy VII Remake took forever. Not in the bad way, just the necessary, grueling, decade-spanning kind. Now that Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is done, the dust has settled long enough for Naoki Hamaguchi to look up.
He is the director behind the final chapter, Revelation, and the guy who has spent more than ten years staring at Aerith and Cloud.
He sat down for a chat after Summer Game Fest, where Square Enix saved the reveal for last. Big move. It worked. Fans were loud, mostly positive, which is more than they gave the team in the early dark days. Hamaguchi says the short three-year gap before Revelation in spring 2027 was intentional. A mercy, really.
Skipping the DLC
They had ideas. Concrete ones, too. Hamaguchi admits he had plenty of content ready to go for a Rebirth DLC. But they scrapped it. Why? Because DLCs feel like scraps when you are telling a cohesive story.
“We decided to make a very smooth transition… we shifted all development resources into Revelation.”
No filler. Just straight into the third part. It makes the timeline tight. Three years is short for AAA games these days, but because the core team never dispersed, the workflow was continuous. That is a luxury few developers ever get. Usually, the studio disbands after game two, and you have to build a new family from scratch. Not here. The team stayed. That retention was the cheat code.
But don’t ask about DLC for Revelation. Not yet. Hamaguchi shuts that door politely. If the fans demand it later? Maybe. Right now, it is off the table.
Parachutes, Not Airfields
The world of Gaia is huge. Like, really huge. In the original 1997 game, you landed the Highwind ship wherever you needed. It felt seamless then, back when maps were smaller and loading screens hid the seams.
Now? The map is too big. Landing the massive ship would require designing dozens of distinct runways, breaking the immersion, and messing with the geography. So, Hamaguchi’s solution? Drop them like a Battle Royale match.
Party members jump. Parachutes open. They hit the ground.
It feels jarring at first? Maybe. But it solves a logistics problem elegantly. Plus, everyone understands dropping in. It is a language gamers already speak. Is that the only shooter influence? He says yes. Don’t push it.
Combat Gets Weird
By the time you finish Rebirth, the party is crowded. Roles are filled. Enter Cid and Vincent in Revelation. Instead of reinventing the wheel, the team tweaked it.
Cid fights like Nanaki, but in the air. Aerial attacks, support spells. Vincent transforms, obviously, bringing his own flavor to the melee. But the real shakeup is the FITS system.
Jobs. Like in old Final Fantasy. You can make Cloud a Black Mage.
Does this break character consistency? Not entirely. Cloud still swings a sword, but now he also hurls dark magic from a distance. You don’t have to bring Cloud anymore, which is a heresy worth committing. The system lets players swap roles freely. If you hate tanking, just stop doing it. The game doesn’t care.
The Ending Stands
Did the messy ending of Rebirth scare them? The ambiguous fate of Aerith sent the internet into a tailspin for weeks. Theories flew. People screamed into the void.
Hamaguchi’s stance is stubborn. The conclusion of Revelation was planned before that chaos erupted. The reception of game two didn’t change the script of game three. They wanted a single vision, consistent from start to finish. If that vision frustrates you? Tough. If it delights you? Even better.
“I just hope that players were glad they followed along on this journey.”
He wants closure. Real closure. Not just “to be continued,” but the end. For thirty-year-old fans and brand-new ones alike.
A Warning for Others
Would Square Enix do this again? Remake FF6? FF9?
Hamaguchi says they could. The narrative depth of those PS1 eras demands the space. A single game remake would mean cutting content. Hard cuts. You’d have to strip out the soul of the original to fit it into one box. The trilogy format allows for breath.
But then he gets serious. Almost sad.
This only worked because he was lucky. Lucky to have an iconic IP. Lucky to keep the same talented team for over a decade. Lucky that the vision survived corporate shifts. Most studios don’t get that. If another dev tries to remake a classic in three parts, they will likely fail. The resource sink is too deep. The burnout rate too high.
So, is he looking forward to remaking FF8 in ten years?
The thought makes him shudder.
Maybe that’s for the best. Some legends are best left alone. For now, at least.
