Good Lord, So Much Work
Square Enix is getting famous for taking a crazy long time to make their biggest games. Final Fantasy 15, Kingdom Hearts III, and now the Final Fantasy 7 remake are all hall of famers in the sport of long development cycles. A Japanese interview from last year was partially translated into English, bringing to light one reason things have been held up for so long.
Square Enix team planner Shinichiro Biwa offered up some insight into the FF7 remake development process. Real-time battles mean that every part of the game has to be re-tooled. Turn-based fights take place in a sort of z-space. It’s pretty quick and dirty compared to the alternative. Fighting all the battles in real time means every map is basically being done up from scratch. It’s all done in three stages:
Part 1: Interpretation of the locations from the original Final Fantasy VII
Part 2: Planning modifications/additions and alterations to the location, then getting them approved through meetings as well as deciding how much resources are needed.
Part 3: Actually implementing the above, then polishing up the location.
According to Biwa, the assets were completed last summer. Now it’s just a matter of building the world. That’ll be no easy task, considering how static and still the old worlds were. Talk like this makes me unsure we’ll even see a 2020 release for this game. Final Fantasy 7: The Remake is coming out… some time for the PS4.