Square Enix’s upcoming action role-playing game, Final Fantasy VII Revelation, was developed in 3 years by retaining the Fina Fantasy VII Rebirth team and avoiding major pivots.
During a recent interview with Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier, Final Fantasy VII Remake trilogy director Naoki Hamaguchi explained that development planning for Revelation began roughly a year before Rebirth launched. While the core team was still focused on completing the second title, he was already designing the final installment and determining what players would want most from the conclusion of the trilogy. At the forefront of those goals were full exploration via the Highwind and a larger sense of scale than Rebirth.
More importantly, however, the team never had to restart from scratch. The Final Fantasy VII Remake trilogy director revealed that approximately 95% of the staff who worked on Rebirth remained on Revelation, which proved to be a major advantage. Unlike most projects at Square Enix, where teams are typically disbanded after a game’s completion and developers are reassigned elsewhere, the Final Fantasy VII Remake project retained its core staff throughout the trilogy. “The big benefit of the Final Fantasy VII Remake series is that we never had to go through that process, so the transition was extremely quick,” he said.
Schreier further highlighted this point in his YouTube video, arguing that team chemistry is one of the most overlooked factors in game development. By keeping developers together, teams build familiarity, establish efficient workflows, and avoid the costly process of rebuilding communication structures and production pipelines for every new project.
Hamaguchi also credited Revelation’s smooth development to a clear creative direction. He mentioned that the team established its goals early, allowing it to steer clear of major changes. “We never really pivoted to a different direction after arriving at a specific approach we wanted to take,” he said. According to him, the team trusted the vision laid out from the beginning, allowing development to move forward without the disruptions that often plague large-scale productions.
