The Final Fantasy 7 Remake team's 10 years working together puts it "in a really great position to move forward and do something even greater" once the trilogy wraps

Nov. 23, 2024

“It could be the next numbered Final Fantasy. It could be a completely different brand”

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In the wake of industry-wide layoffs,Final Fantasy 7 Rebirthdirector Naoki stresses how how vital it has been to have worked with the same team for the past decade – and how, hopefully, they can bring that expertise to the next project post-Part 3.

Hamaguchi-san showed great appreciation for how his team has managed to stick together in the years sinceFinal Fantasy 7 Remake, retaining incredibly specific talent amid the spate of industry-wide layoffs, closures, and some of themost expensive studio acquisitionsever marking cause for concern elsewhere. “I think the reason [SonyandMicrosoft] did that is because of the way game development is now,” he suggests, no doubt referring to the increasingly high technical demands, player expectations, and industry standards involved in modern gaming. “It’s just so difficult to make these real, high-end games without having that experience base. For a team with no experience at all, who’s never done a large-scale game, just to throw them in and get them to make something is such a difficult ask. So I think that’s why they went around buying these studios that already had a certain level of experience built up.

“But certainly, considering that background, my team has been together – The Final Fantasy 7 team – for about a total of 10 years, maybe. To go through this whole trilogy project, slowly building up our experience and our know-how, the team has seriously learned so much and grown so much during that period,” he says of how valuable it is to retain that talent. “So I think when we finally do bring the trilogy to a close and get the final game out, we’ll be in a really great position to move forward and do something even greater – and that experience is just so key to that, and that we managed to build [that] up by staying together.”

Check out thebest JRPGsto play while you wait for the final part of the Final Fantasy 7 Remake trilogy.

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