In the wake of news that Square Enix’s much anticipated Final Fantasy VII remake, as well as Kingdom Hearts 3, are expected to be released by 2020 at the latest, Square Enix has also announced that they are moving all production of the VII Remake in house. This comes after a period of collaboration with CyberConnect2, a studio known for its work on the .hack games and the Naruto series of video games.
This news was delivered by the new project lead for the remake, Naoki Hamaguchi. Hamaguchi has been the director of Square Enix’s mobile game Mobius Final Fantasy, which was released in 2015, and has previously worked on XII and the XIII series in varying capacities. Hamaguchi explained that the production was moving in house to retain full quality control on a stable schedule, which gives Square Enix more control over the production. Tetsuya Nomura is still set as the director of the remake, which is being produced by Yoshinori Kitase.
This comes on the heels of Square Enix’s recent job postings by Business Division 1, specifically looking to recruit core staff for the remake of VII. The actual posting by Kitase, is as follows (translated into English):
Business Division 1 is the section that is responsible for producing Mobius Final Fantasy and Final Fantasy VII Remake. In 1997 we completely changed the gaming scene at the time with the worldwide hit that is Final Fantasy VII. And the remake of said masterpiece is Final Fantasy VII Remake.Additional messages were posted from Nomura and Hamaguchi as well. With the urgent recruitment and the shift to an entirely in-house production going forward, it certainly sounds like Square Enix is trying to step up their game and try and avoid a drawn-out production time, as was the case for previous projects including Final Fantasy XV. This comes after they explained in their decision to let Hitman developer Io-Interactive go that they wanted to do major titles in-house, and outsource smaller ones.For this project, we aim to surpass the original work in terms of quality by increasing the number of staff to strengthen the core company development as we head into the development progress phase.
In addition to myself, we have director Nomura, scenario writer Nojima-san, and more from the original Final Fantasy VII staff lineup that continued working as staff on the production of past Final Fantasy titles, and they are now joining the team one after the other.
How would you like to join us, together, in the Remake of Final fantasy VII? We are looking forward to receiving your applications.
