CD Projekt’s The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is a major source of inspiration for the side content featured in Square Enix’s upcoming action role-playing game, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth.
Speaking in an interview, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth co-director Motomu Toriyama stated that open-world role-playing games like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt served as the the basis for some extensive research during development. He mentioned that the development team looked at it as a baseline, so that Final Fantasy VII Rebirth could be a game that can stand alongside it and have the type of content that would be satisfying to its players.
When asked about his favorite role-playing game outside of the Final Fantasy series, director Naoki Hamaguchi mentioned The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt without hesitation. As such, it’s clear that, at the very least, two of the three co-directors of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth are fans of CD Projekt’s action role-playing game.
Hamaguchi also mentioned that the development team wanted to give players the freedom of choice in deciding whether they wanted to dedicate themselves solely to the main storyline or delve into the side content and go really in-depth into the character relationships and understand the story from a deeper perspective. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth gives players the freedom to experience side content at their own pace.
In a previous interview, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth producer Yoshinori Kitase shared that the game’s world is not referred to as an open world internally by the development team. He explained that Midgar, the setting of the previous game, was a closed terrain, so no matter who played, everyone followed the same story. However, for Rebirth, the development team wanted players to choose which quests or side activities to take on. The catch here is that in order to move from one area to the next, the main story is preserved by having the player meet the necessary prerequisites, such as passing through a specific dungeon or obtaining a new vehicle.
