Part three of the Final Fantasy 7 Remake trilogy will be more “concise”, said director Naoki Hamaguchi, as fan feedback from Rebirth has been taken into account.
Rebirth, the second part of the trilogy, shifted to an open world filled with minigames, but some players criticised story sections for being too drawn out.
Speaking to Screen Rant, Hamaguchi disagreed but is still taking on such feedback while developing the next game.
“Regarding time management in certain sections, especially in FF7 Rebirth, I honestly don’t believe that they were longer than necessary,” he said. “I feel like nowadays, players just have too much to do and too much to play; so they often feel the urge that something has to be concluded quickly.”
He added: “As we work on the conclusion to the trilogy, we are striking a balance on how story arcs are told and spread out so as to ensure that the game feels a bit more concise.”
Rebirth did, however, introduce some great minigames like card game Queen’s Blood. Hopefully being more “concise” with storytelling will still leave space for innovation and amusing side activities.
What’s more, in a previous interview Hamaguchi stated the third game will have some form of new gameplay experience, though it remains under wraps.
“But moving forward to the third game in the series,” he said, “obviously I can’t say exactly what it is, but I don’t want to deliver just exactly the same style of gameplay experience as we had with Rebirth again. We’re going to evolve it and change it again to give another different and fresh take on the Final Fantasy 7 gameplay. Again, that will be revealed in the not too distant future. I can say we’re working on it and we’re trying to change that because we’ve actually got a build up and running in the development team right now where you can experience that new style of gameplay.”
It certainly seems, then, that part three will be a step on from Rebirth, not only adding something fresh beyond simply wrapping up the story, but taking fan feedback into account too. Let’s just hope the convoluted narrative of the Remake trilogy concludes comprehensively.
Additionally, Hamaguchi previously said the multiplatform approach for the trilogy won’t impact development “whatsoever”, now that Final Fantasy 7 Remake is heading to Switch 2 and Xbox, and will be followed by subsequent games.
