Square Enix’s in-development finale to the Final Fantasy 7 Remake trilogy has been described as a more “concise” entry than the absolutely massive scale of its predecessor, Rebirth.
With the next entry of the FF7 Remake storyline targeting a multi-platform release, series director Naoki Hamaguchi has been quite vocal about its development. While little is known about the actual content of game and what it will change, Hamaguchi is adamant that nothing of substance from the original is being cut.
Speaking to VGC earlier this month, Hamaguchi explained that his previous comments about making the game more “concise” are “not about cutting content”. While some interprited the statement as slimming down the original, instead he means the game will simply be less stretched out compared to the series’ middle entry.
“I feel that the pacing, the content, and the balance in Rebirth is exactly as I wanted it.”
Final Fantasy 7 Remake Trilogy Director Naoki Hamaguchi
“Just to explain, the original question I was asked there was, they said that there are some people who played Rebirth, the second game in the series, and they felt that because we’ve added in new story content, which wasn’t in the original Final Fantasy 7, to them it felt like the story was being stretched out. So they asked whether we were considering doing anything related to that in the third game,” Hamaguchi told the outlet.
While Hamaguchi acknowledges the sentiment of some Rebirth players, the director personally feels that the pacing of the second game in the Final Fantasy 7 Remake trilogy is great. (Honestly, as someone who adores the game’s superfluousness, I agree.)
“I feel that the pacing, the content, and the balance in Rebirth is exactly as I wanted it,” the director continued. “I personally don’t feel it’s been stretched out; it doesn’t feel unnecessarily long. To me, I think I got that right, and I think a lot of people would agree with me.”
Nevertheless, the team behind the Final Fantasy 7 Remake Part 3 is working on “improving the pacing” following the feedback fans gave after the release of Rebirth. Hamaguchi explained the goal is “to achieve an even greater level of immersion in the game, we make sure that the story developments move forward in a fairly speedy manner and with the right pace essentially, rather than feeling slow and drawn out.”
However, the director wants to make sure that fans know nothing is being trimmed unncessarily, and the story will be complete. Hamaguchi says his previous comment “may have been misconstrued by people; they may have said, ‘OK, that means they’re going to cut down on the volume and they’re going to remove story content, it’s going to be a shorter game, they’re going to cut it down’, and that’s not what I’m saying at all.”
While the game may end up being quite long—it is an RPG after all—the goal is to make sure “the pacing feels right”, and that “you can get through it at a reasonable pace”. After all, the entirety of Rebirth is longer than the entirety of the original FF7 and some people love that, but others don’t.
At the time of writing, there is no release date for Final Fantasy 7 Remake Part 3, or even a proper name for the journey. Hamaguchi claims that, alongside Kingdom Hearts 4, the game’s development is proceeding well, but we likely won’t hear more about the title until 2026.
