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Final Fantasy VII Remake shifts toward internal development By Erren Van Duine on May 29, 2017 at 1:55 AM

Square Enix is shifting development of Final Fantasy VII Remake in-house. According to several comments made during a special broadcast, it was revealed Naoki Hamaguchi, who was previously in charge of the development for Mobius Final Fantasy, will be taking on the top developmental role for the highly-anticipated remake. He made the following comments during the show:

“So far, development (for FFVIIR) has been carried out mainly with the support of external partners. However, in view of factors such as improving quality when the product goes into mass production in the future, the company has decided to shift the developmental system back to within the company, so as to maintain a stable schedule and have control over factors such as quality. We will be forming a robust system within the company to properly carry out the development.”

It seems Naoki Hamaguchi will be focusing his attention on Final Fantasy VII Remake in light of recent recruitment listings looking for various staff positions. It’s currently unknown what this means for Square Enix’s previous collaboration with outsourcing companies such as CyberConnect2.

Final Fantasy VII Remake is currently in development for PlayStation 4.

Posted in Final Fantasy VII Remake.
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  • Kchri

    Wow.. Can anyone speculate on if this is potentially good or not-so-good news coming at this time? What kind of reputation does Mr. Hamaguchi have? I wasn’t really taken in by Mobius FF at all. When it says he is assuming the top developmental position, what is his role?? Is he leading all of the teams of developers?

  • All this shifting around doesn’t sound healthy for the game tbh. They need to get peeps from Division 2 and put them on board and get this game done. It sucks they planned out a years worth of content for FFXV, it shouldn’t take all it’s staff members to focus on that stuff -.-

  • Serj_Angelo

    Seems like CC2 didn’t do that well on their end.

  • Bayu Revandy

    There’s bad and good news from this, the outsourcing means faster development but also means that the people working on it will be differnt than the original FF7, which mean some of the source material will be gone or altered

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  • I think you got this news wrong…CC2 was helping them develop the game and now they shifted the development to be totally in-house which doesn’t necessarily mean the development will be slower (since they’re hiring more people to make it faster). Also, content could be cut or changed regardless of the game being developed externally or in-house.

  • Patrick Bateman

    …I don’t like the sound of this. I like that it’s in-house, but I don’t like that there’s developmental shifts happening like this. I know many games go through shifts and changes all the time, it’s just not always public, but things tend to go horribly wrong with Square in particular when stuff like this happen…

  • Mattxxuw

    Are we having an another development “hell”???

  • NoctLightCloud

    CyberConnect2? I think I know them from old PS2 Naruto games ^^
    Naoki Hamaguchi has worked on XII and the XIII trilogy as well. I don’t think things can get worse JUST because of one single person, guys. Who knows what kind of staff shifts older FF games have experienced, internally, without the knowledge of the public. Just don’t expect anything from the remake, then there will be no disappointment and only joy when you find out that they included Crisis Core or Advent Children content. 😉

  • Heropon

    Have you heard of .Hack// ? Cyberconnect2 is also famous for create such amazing JRPG like that .

  • Martin Hague

    This is good news not the latter means the origanal desighners will have more controll over FF7RE and may acelarate production and dev of the game as square probberly concerned out how long development is taking and would like to see disc 1 out before the end of next year??? and taking fans worries into consideration.

  • Yuntu

    Why do they need people from Division 2? That doesn´t make any sense lol

  • Wazi the pa

    This news isn’t really bad or good; it is what it is.
    Maybe a mishap took place or possibly they genuinely believe (after determining the best approach) they could reach milestones efficiently by having every single developer under the same roof. It’s really difficult to speculate on the “whys” at the moment.

    Whatever the reason may be, the gist of this news tells us that the project is very much alive and starting to dig deep in the development phase.

  • Noctis Leonhart Strife

    Square-enix return to make games in the 32-bit / 128-bit generation style. It is more than clear that Japanese are not able to deal with the demands of the generation of games in high definition. Go back to producing turn-based, 32-bit era turn-based games with pre-rendered scenarios, fill up the quality CG games, and you’re out to satisfy everyone and earn a lot. Forget games with realistic graphics and gigantic worlds, give us FFXVI.

  • stevenm281

    Mass production hasn’t begun? Okay, well, we can officially say that it wont release before the next three years…

  • Dod

    They better not fuck this up, XV was already too much.

  • Krijn van Alten

    I would love that, XVI in VI style!

  • NoctLightCloud

    Yes I’ve heard of it 🙂

  • NoctLightCloud

    Turn-based 32-bit games don’t sell well in 2017. Not in Japan, and neither in the West.

  • NoctLightCloud

    I don’t think they can fuck up VII though. The characters, the music & the story already exist, and we love them (at least I do). I can’t think of anything that they could fuck up so that I, for that reason, actually start hating VII.

  • Dod

    I’m not hating at all, just worried :). A lot of things could go sideways even if we don’t realize it yet.

  • Noctis

    can`t go wrong without tabata. I`m sure he would find an excuse to kill them all off to make us cry

  • Dod

    Well said my Prince.

  • ….

    What? How they can change the way of development 2 years after showing the game and just 1 year to release it?

  • Taylor Edwards

    What makes you think it’ll be released in a year?

  • Noctis Leonhart Strife

    So let me try to understand, will everything that you have done so far be discarded? Will start from scratch, just like FFXV?

  • Randy Marsh

    ^This.The average gaming consumer will not buy games nowadays unless they have superb graphics in the package. Games that use any form of sprite work, example Nippon Ichi games, are incredibly niche and sell pretty underwhelming. This goes for both Japan and the West. So I doubt people want that happening to Square-Enix titles, I mean unless they want the company to go under and make less titles.

  • ….

    Because if not will be even worst. And rumors was pointing to it.
    Come on, the game was in 2014’s E3! And 3 years after they change the dev?

  • stevenm281

    it was at E3 2015, not 2014. And never pay attention to rumors, they’re more trouble than anything else. Always wait for official information.

  • stevenm281

    Why Division 2? FF15 and FF7R are using two different game engine, therefore Division 2’s experience wouldn’t be that helpful with Unreal Engine 4. Now, if both would have been using Luminous, it would be totally different.

  • ….

    “it was at E3 2015, not 2014”.
    Ok, my mistake.
    But let’s take a look. No one show a game in E3 that is not in dev for at least one year. Right?
    Is crazy to think that Square showed the game and than start to dev it.
    So, how Square past 3 years (at least) developing the game and than change everything about it right now? So will be another “10 years dev FF”?

  • Starlord

    Nomura is a great character designer, but man he is slow getting games out. Also, I don’t think what they stated means ( stripping the game bare and starting over.) Though I do have my worries of them shift dev teams.

  • A lot of Squares games seems disjointed and convoluted. Ive always wonder why this happened so much after 12. Im thinking its because they may have different group handling different areas of the game. So once all the teams finish their parts they try to mash them together into one game. Gameplay wise that might work. But world layout and story wise it feels odd and doesnt tie in well. Just like 15 and the 13s. It seems that might be what happens to 7r too.

  • stevenm281

    well Nomura did say that he learned that he was the director for FF7R while seeing the trailer at E3.

    So yes, Square Enix always announce games before actual development begins, which is totally dumb. Announcements should be made within one year before release.

  • Funtime Happysnacks

    I don’t think it got very far into development at all. The furthest point Nomura ever confirmed they’d gotten to was Scorpion Guard. He said they were adding environmental hazards and ways to interact with your surroundings during battle. Also every comment they made about combat was different from the last, and there was even supposedly resistance within the company towards changing anything from the original, which Nomura apparently just steamrolled over.

  • Funtime Happysnacks

    Well Nomura said they are toning down Honeybee Inn, and that story events may be shuffled around for pacing purposes. Also, I believe Nomura said they would be working in references to Compilation, or rather they would leave details “acknowledging” the extra games and stuff.

    TBH it seems more like they are using the original game as a template to just make a new game.

  • Funtime Happysnacks

    I believe they already confirmed FF16 will be similar to 15– they see their old games as ‘outdated’ now, and action-RPG is ‘modernized’, so no chance they will come back to turn-based. I’m giving up on FF and diving into DQ games instead now starting at IV.

  • Funtime Happysnacks

    The company has nearly put itself under countless times already. For example, Spirits Within nearly bankrupted the entire company, and FFXIV 1.0 was so poorly received that their CEO, Yoichi Wada, resigned out of shame.

  • Funtime Happysnacks

    Haven’t they abandoned Luminous now, since they came to terms with the fact that it was just too old to make modern games with? Both FFXV and KH3 were originally started in Luminous, and FFXV still has lingering reminders of it– things like fucked up water reflection, cuz Luminous doesn’t like water.

  • Funtime Happysnacks

    you need to read the article again my dude.

  • stevenm281

    You haven’t read properly my comment then, as I nowhere asked for turnbased…

  • stevenm281

    Luminous is a brand new engine that finalized its development at the same time than FF15.

    They made the engine for the future.

    They switched to Unreal Engine 4 to start development of other HD titles while Luminous was being finished.

    Now that the engine is done, we shall see if they’ll use it for other games that have yet to start development.

  • Ricardo Fernandes

    Final Fantasy VII Remake, see you in 8 years.
    Since the average dev time in Square is 10 years for a AAA game.

  • Funtime Happysnacks
  • stevenm281

    Nah, it goes with what I’m saying, Luminous wasnt finished, they couldnt develop efficiently games with it while it wasnt fully ready, so while they used FF15 to help finalize Luminous, in the meantime, titles were switched to the Unreal Engine 4 game engine (FF7R and KH3).

  • you got a point but I doubt it wouldnt be too hard for them to catch on. They just need more people is all and I think it’s wiser to put more people on from FFXV and leave some to carry out the future DLC unless they still need a lot of people for that.

  • Because they need more people lol why not? They took people off of Versus to get XIII and 14 going in the beginning so shifting people around doesn’t really sound that bad so long as the people know what they’re doing.

  • Vallen

    So CyberConnect2 got the boot and the game is now worked on by SE? This will take even longer lol. Also, is Nomura off the project again?

  • Jesus Christ

    Ain’t this the truth!

  • Vallen

    That’s normal for SE

  • Vallen

    Seems so. Unless some other studio messed up and SE just decided to pull the project from everyone

  • Funtime Happysnacks

    They are not using Luminous. If you can link me to your sources then I don’t mind having egg on my face, but I really think you are confused here.

  • stevenm281

    which is why they are hiring a mass amount of people with experience on Unreal Engine 4 for FF7R.

    That way Business Division 2 can focus all their efforts on finishing the content for FF15.

  • stevenm281

    Why are you saying they are not using Luminous for FF15? Even the credits for the game mention it.

  • Nick Greeley

    This is false. Luminous didn’t exist in 2005 and was originally created as a lighting engine for Versus XIII in 2008/9.

    All of the KH games (aside from Chain and the DS titles) ran on the same engine until KH3.

  • Yuntu

    And BD2 also needs people. Back then was different because XIV was literally fucked up and XIII simply needed more hands due to it being their first HD title with a shitty engine.

  • Funtime Happysnacks

    What engine were they using before?

  • stevenm281

    Crystal Tools

  • Yuntu

    Wada did not resign because of XIV. Wada resigned in 2013 (or 2012?) because the company experienced losses due to various games underperfoming.

    XIV nearly put the company under, but Wada did not resign because of that.

  • Yuntu

    Nothing points towards this being Nomuras fault. And even if, the game isn´t slow in development.

    The problem is SE simply announced this game the second they started developing it. Not that it takes too long. 4-6 years isn´t “too long” for a AAA RPG.

  • Nick Greeley

    They’ve never publicly given its name, but I’m pretty sure it’s the same engine as FFX.

  • Starlord

    Unless FFVIIR gets released by 2018 at some point, this game is taking too long. Not to knock Japan’s way of making HD games, but western devs can actually get there games out in a reasonable timeframe 2-3 years max ( barring a few exception on some games).

    SE is known to announce things waaaay to prematurely. However, regardless of when it was announced they started working on this game since 2013 (4 years), and we still have not even a release window. Parts of it is SE as a whole fault, but Nomura is known to taking a long time. Heck even KH3 is starting to fit into that realm, and KH is Nomura’s baby.

    I am also against Devs being on more than 1 project, it just messes with the flow of a directors vision ( Not Nomrua’s fault, that is the people that assign tasks to the directors.

  • Noctis

    he`s busy with Versus 😛

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  • NoctLightCloud

    Well, Honeybee Inn isn’t crucial to the story at all, so I wouldn’t really mind to be honest. I think as long as a lot of the original staff is working on this, it can’t go wrong. VII was far from perfect (especially the ending) to begin with.

  • Yuntu

    Horizon Zero Dawn took almost 6 years to make. They started working in some capacity on FF7R late 2014. So that´s not even 3 years.

    KH3 on the other hand needs to get some hints towards a release window this year and I personally think it will be SEs game for next year.

  • Mattxxuw

    It can be a good news actually cause shifting to internal development or in-house means that they can manage and observe the progress of the development anytime they want. They’re the ones who made it in the 1st place so making the game in a environment where the original makers reside is a good choice. To make it the best as possible in a stable schedule.

    Though that may be the positive result of shifting it internally but it can mean anything really. Well I said the positive side of why they did it but it can be that CyberConnect2 did something wrong so they want to take matters to their hands themselves or its very confidential that SE doesn’t want to reveal it. Either way I’m happy with it. I can see why they are hiring more people with experience handling Unreal Engine 4, cause they’re making it in-house and in this case I’m siding with them cause that is a good choice. It’s clear that they’re serious of making this game live-up to our expectations and making mistakes is not an excuse. Working with other game companies can be difficult cause they don’t have the same vision of want they want the game to be and SE would never do that to their precious FFVII.

  • Invictus

    Efficiency is something they need to put into their plan. Efficiency to work on a project within a given timeframe, with utmost quality. Man, it’s going to be a tough 3-5 years. But hey, at least we get one new screenshot every single year yeah?

  • Invictus

    Will it be much sensible to put this out as a PS5 exclusive then excluding the episodic format?

    We’re all doomed to wait for another 3-6 years dev time anyway.

    Just my two cents though.

  • Lucas Nóbrega Maia

    Nomura is still the director , it’s just that Mobius’ director will also work in this game.
    This shows how SE really wants this game to b a sucess as it is basically putting all their high esteemed workers in one project.

  • Rivershield

    What the hell are you talking about?!
    Japanese games are coming back strong in this generation.
    Regardless of its problems, FFXV is a great game. If it had more time for development (I’m sure you know that the team barely had 3 years of development since the game changed from Versus 13 to XV), this game could have been the best FF to date.

    Final Fantasy has being ALWAYS a franchise that uses over the top tecnology and graphics. Being at the top graphics of its time is as much tradition of the franchise as anything else.
    Final Fantasy XVI is probably already under development, and we will have FFVII Remake in the meantime. If Square Enix learned with their mistakes on XV, there’s no reason to doubt that XVI can be a masterpiece.

    Where this pessimism of yours come from?

  • Taylor Edwards

    No, it was announce at E3 2015. KH3 on the other hand was announced at E3 2013, so if you’re assuming that the game would come out four years after its announcement FFVII Remake would come out in 2019, but if we’re judging when it will come out based on KH3’s development, then FFVII Remake wouldn’t come out until 2020 at the earliest. But since Square Enix already confirmed that it won’t come out after 2020, we can safely assume that it will come out in 2019 or 2020.