Final Fantasy 7 Remake series director Naoki Hamaguchi says splitting the project into three games wasn’t a business decision, as it’s a risky endeavor.
When it was announced that Final Fantasy 7’s remake would be an episodic release, many scoffed at the idea, but here we are years later, with two great RPGs to show for it and Final Fantasy 7 Revelation being one of the most anticipated games of all time. Remaking the game’s sheer scale seemingly necessitated the multi-game approach, but some saw it as nothing more than Square Enix trying to milk its most popular game for all its worth. However, the director of the Final Fantasy 7 Remake trilogy says business didn’t factor into it at all.
Speaking to Final Weapon, Hamaguchi says he can’t imagine many other games that would be remade across multiple titles, with the director thinking he won’t see a game on the same scale as the trilogy ever again. And while from “a creative perspective” the game necessitated this massive project, Hamaguchi notes “from a business perspective, it’s a totally different story.”
“If the first title had sold really poorly and been poorly reviewed, I mean, what do you do with the rest of the titles?” Hamaguchi says. He notes that with a project like this, “There’s also this need to keep the team as similar as possible across all of the titles,” with him calling it “another huge headache, especially for people who control the strings.”
Hamaguchi says these are “big risks that you have to take” for a project like this, and he doesn’t think “many will” take that on. In an era of ballooning AAA budgets, the Final Fantasy 7 Remake trilogy is especially impressive, and sure the devs have reused assets and other factors, but given the reported budgets of the Marvel’s Spider-Man sequels, I feel like even that’s not a given for a smooth development now.