Recently, Naoki Hamaguchi, director of the Final Fantasy VII Remake series, stated that adapting the 1997 original into a trilogy was a creative decision accompanied by commercial risks. Although the series has received critical acclaim and achieved commercial success, if the first installment had underperformed, developing subsequent entries would have become problematic.
In an interview, Naoki Hamaguchi cited an example: if the first installment had performed poorly in sales and reviews, the team would have faced difficult decisions about how to proceed with the remaining entries. Maintaining a similar development team across all three games was also necessary to ensure consistency in gameplay and story, which posed its own challenges for those overseeing the project.
Discussing team management, he suggested that the success of the trilogy so far could serve as a reference for other teams at Square Enix. In the past, members were typically dispersed to different projects after completing a game; now, teams that remain dedicated to the same series can continue building upon their previous work.
The trilogy's finale, Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth, is scheduled to launch on PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and Switch 2 on April 8, 2027. Naoki Hamaguchi stated that players will need to play through the game multiple times to experience all its content.
Some side quests in the finale will change depending on when players accept them and which characters they use. Naoki Hamaguchi mentioned that these changes could affect narrative perspective, story experience, gameplay, or even quest outcomes. Regarding the scale of content at launch, he stated it "might exceed that of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth."