‘Final Fantasy VII Rebirth’ Director Says He Wants To Bring Remake Trilogy To “As Many Players Out There As Possible” – But Still Has Yet To Announce PC Release Date For Latest Entry
In an update that could read as either ‘optimistic’ or ‘frustrating’ depending on one’s personal level of investment in the game’s yet-to-be-announced PC release, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth director Naoki Hamaguchi says that, despite the lack of progress in doing so, he would like to see the Remake trilogy come to as many platforms as possible.
During a recent interview with Games Radar‘s Jasmine Gould-Wilson, the topic of conversation eventually turned to whether the Remake trilogy would eventually come to more platforms.
Offering what little insight he could into the matter, Hamaguchi asserted, “In terms of Final Fantasy VII, there’s nothing really we can say at the moment, but certainly I do want to bring Final Fantasy VII and the Remake series to as many players out there as possible, so we want to create that situation, that environment, where more players can play the games in future, and we want to look in that direction.”
Elaborating on his thoughts, the series’ new director (having taken over the role in 2021 after Testuya Nomura stepped down in order to work on other projects), Hamaguchi noted that far from his own personal desire, the concept of multiplatform releases was something that not just Square Enix, but the video game industry at large was beginning to embrace.
“I think this goes beyond Final Fantasy VII,” he said. “It really is a change in the industry, and I think certainly we’re feeling right now that the industry has changed in terms of there being so many different platforms and environments that people play games on these days.”
Hamaguchi contrasted this with how in the past publishers would “put out a game in one place and get most of the players coming to that game to play it [on that platform].”
“It’s so much more diversified now,” he told Gould-Wilson, “so I think that’s that’s probably why [Square Enix] CEO, Mr. [Takashi] Kiryu, made that decision to move more in the direction of multiplatform – that’s just the way that the industry is going.”
As this portion of the interview came to a close, Hamaguchi offered one last thought on the multiplatform discussion – namely, that despite the Final Fantasy franchise being predominantly tied to the PlayStation brand, he was particularly fond of Xbox’s consoles.
“This is just a personal opinion now, but I’ve got an Xbox myself,” he enthusiastically recalled. “I think it’s a great hardware platform. I do like Xbox.”
While this mention of Microsoft’s flailing PlayStation competitor does not appear to be related to any sort of confirmation or news about Rebirth‘s future, it does confirm that, at the very least, the game’s director is at least actively aware of the Xbox ecosystem as a viable destination for Square Enix releases.
In May of this year, Square Enix announced that in an effort to “shift from quantity to quality,” they would be turning their operational attentions on four key areas: the “development of titles delivering fun, the rebuilding of their “overseas business divisions from the ground up”, the allocating of “a maximum of ¥100 billion for total strategic investments (growth investments or shareholder returns),” and – most relevantly to Hamaguchi’s latest interview – the shifting of their release philosophy “to a multiplatform strategy”,
And already, it appears this change in tact is already manifesting, as since the announcement, a number of Square Enix titles including SaGa: Emerald Beyond, Visions of Mana, Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven, Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake, and Fantasian: Neo Dimension have all had multiplatform releases.
Further, older titles such as Octopath Traveller and its sequel have also recently been ported to modern consoles. Likewise, Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster made its way to the Xbox Series X|S in September, while Final Fantasy XVI opened its door to PC players August.
At current, Final Fantasy VII Remake is available on the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 and PC platforms. Meanwhile, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth unfortunately remains a PlayStation 5 exclusive.
All in all, whether or not Hamaguchi actually follows through on his desire for multiplatform releases remains to be seen – hopefully starting with an announcement of a PC release date for Rebirth.
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