Final Fantasy VII Remake was the most difficult game to develop in Square Enix’s remake trilogy, according to director Naoki Hamaguchi. He explained that the team had to restart development with just 30 members, leaving them to establish the project’s foundations while also building up the development team.
Speaking in an interview with YouTuber mistermv, shared by Genki_JPN, Hamaguchi discussed the challenges of working on the first game compared with its sequels, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth and Final Fantasy VII Revelation.
According to Hamaguchi, the original project had to be restarted, and the team was left with only 30 developers. They had to build the development structure from scratch while deciding how the remake should look and play.
One of the biggest challenges was determining the level of quality players would expect from a modern recreation of Final Fantasy VII. The developers had to establish the game’s visual standards, overall experience and technical foundations without an existing framework to guide them.
Hamaguchi explained that the situation was different for Rebirth and Revelation. By the time development moved to the sequels, the team already had an established structure and a clearer understanding of what it wanted to achieve.
The experience gained from developing Remake allowed the team to expand its ambitions with each subsequent entry. Rather than starting over, the developers could build on existing systems and introduce additional features and improvements.
For that reason, Hamaguchi considers the beginning of the trilogy its most challenging development period, as the team had to establish nearly everything that would support the later games.
Final Fantasy VII Remake launched on PS4 on April 10, 2020, reimagining the Midgar portion of the original 1997 RPG with modern visuals and real-time combat. Its sequel, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, arrived on February 29, 2024, expanding the adventure beyond Midgar into a much larger world.
The trilogy will conclude with Final Fantasy VII Revelation, scheduled for release on April 8, 2027, for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch 2 and PC. The final entry continues directly after the events of Rebirth and follows the party’s confrontation with Sephiroth.
Hamaguchi joined Square Enix in 2003 and previously worked on Final Fantasy XII, Final Fantasy XIII and Mobius Final Fantasy. He served as co-director of Final Fantasy VII Remake alongside Tetsuya Nomura before taking the lead director role on Rebirth and Revelation.
