Just last month, Square Enix finally unveiled the second chapter of the Final Fantasy VII remake trilogy with Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. While a release date is still unknown, Square Enix has been slowly sharing information about the game and its development.
In a conversation with Japanese gaming site Dengeki Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, Executive Producer Yoshinori Kitase, Producer Mariko Sato, and Creative Director Tetsuya Nomura spoke a little about the game’s development and even some gameplay details. Kitase and Nomura confirmed that players should not expect to visit locations in the same order as in the original FF7 in Rebirth, but nothing has been omitted, only the order of visiting certain locations has been changed.
Kitase: I can’t reveal the specific scope of the story, but there are no major events from the original version that are missing from the entire story. However, in FFVII REBIRTH you don’t have to visit the locations that appeared in the original version in exactly the same order. Some locations are visited in a different order.
Nomura: It’s just that the order in which you visit locations has changed, but don’t worry, that doesn’t mean some locations have been completely lost.
In the same interview, the developers mentioned that the game’s actual development time did not take three years, as the studio spent one year creating Final Fantasy 7 Remake: Intergrade and the PC version of Remake. Speaking of which, the fact that FF7 Rebirth is only coming to PS5 was a good thing for the development team, as Kitase points out that moving development to PS5 made it easier to develop Rebirth.
Kitase: The fact that we released FFVII REMAKE INTERGRADE after FFVII REMAKE also had an impact. FFVII REBIRTH development went smoothly thanks to the transition to the PS5 environment. As I mentioned in my post to the developers, the speed of development is really amazing for a title of this magnitude. After FFVII REMAKE was created, we spent about a year developing the PC version and FFVII REMAKE INTERGRADE, and then started working on FFVII REBIRTH, so the actual development period was less than three years.
Finally, the studio has confirmed that the final chapter of the trilogy will also begin with an “R”, so make your guesses.
