‘Final Fantasy VII Rebirth’ Director Laments How Video Games Have “Lost” The Joy Of “Discussion And Theorizing”
Though such an outcome was inevitable given the natural trajectory of human technology, Final Fantasy VII remake trilogy director Naoki Hamaguchi still feels a genuine sadness over the fact that widespread access to the internet has effectively made it so future generations will never get to experience the full magic of “discussion and theorizing” about their favorite video games.
Hamaguchi reflected on this particular sense of nostalgic melancholy during a recent interview given to Eurogamer‘s Alex Donaldson, his attentions turned to the topic after being asked as to how many “iterations” the game went through in service of perfecting its final release, as prompted by the recent discovery of unused and scrapped content files buried within Rebirth‘s PC release.
“In terms of iterating on the story, we try to avoid that to keep one solely creative vision,” he explained. “But yeah, I think maybe part of the reason for that question is because, yeah, we did leave some of the older versions of the script in the game. And I think obviously people picked up on them and it maybe led to a bit of unnecessary speculation about what could have happened, what it could have been. I think also, yeah, fair enough, you got us. [laughs] I think we need to try harder to keep those out of the game!
“I think in some ways it could be fun, though, if you don’t take it too seriously! It gets people’s imaginations going. They might think, ‘the game could have been this, it could have been that’. So if you look at it in that respect, I think it’s harmless fun if you’re just imagining what it could have been.”
RELATED: ‘Final Fantasy VII Remake’ Director Says Third Game Won’t Launch With Streamlined Progression Mode
Met by Donaldson’s own enthusiastic recollection of how the discovery of content within a given PC game would cause players to go absolutely speculation crazy, Hamaguchi asserted, “You know, I’m feeling as well how this is kind of a sign of the way times change. In some ways, we’ve kind of lost that aspect to entertainment.”
“Like you say, back in the day people didn’t know the official information… it was very difficult to find these things out. So you speculate about these things. ‘Oh, if I maybe did this I’d be able to bring this character back, or if I do this special series of actions I can maybe get this thing that you normally can’t get’.
“Obviously ultimately you couldn’t bring them back and you couldn’t get it, but to see people speculate about it and that kind of discussion and theorizing among friends was kind of a part of the way people enjoyed it back then.
“I think nowadays obviously with the internet you can go and check straight away what is really just a weird rumour. And you know that straight away. So I think it’s a sign of the changing times. It’s a bit of an aside really, but I do think that people don’t enjoy things in that way anymore.”
In terms of the series’ own future, Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade will finally join the Nintendo Switch 2 family on January 22nd, 2026, with Rebirth and the as-of-yet-unannounced-third game set to follow at later dates.
Meanwhile, the original 1997 release of Final Fantasy VII is being bundled with the game’s own Magic: The Gathering pre-con Commander deck, while a Nintendo Switch dual-release containing Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy VIII is due out on December 9th.
More About: Video Games