Final Fantasy 7 veteran Yoshinori Kitase has said the quiet part out loud regarding how the Remake trilogy approaches the original JRPG's story – there will be plenty of twists and turns to stop things being predictable, though it won't be wild enough to make eventually linking up with the spin-off film Advent Children unfeasible.
Previously, series creative director Tetsuya Nomura set tongues wagging by saying that, while he wouldn't reveal any spoilers for the next two games in the Final Fantasy 7 Remake trilogy, we'd eventually link up to Advent Childen (thanks, The Guardian).
Speaking to GamesRadar+ in our Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth interview, Kitase tackles a question about just how much the Remake trilogy can change if our charted course has a set destination.
"We are finally going to link up with Advent Children, that is going to be part of the canon," Kitase confirms. "The overall storyline, the developments, will not go wildly out in a way that will not add up to Advent Children in the end.
"I don't think anyone wanted that; that's not what we're looking to create here. [But] to make sure it doesn't become stale and people know exactly where it's going, [that it] doesn't just follow the original word for word, we add in extra elements which add that little bit of doubt.
"Getting the right balance of that is so key. Ultimately, we're not trying to change the Final Fantasy 7 story into something really different. The overall balance wouldn't really allow for that anyway."
Funnily enough, that's likely to lead to even more chatter among the Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth theory crafters over where Rebirth goes and how that might still link to Advent Children. Not that we've been short of things to mull over, as the fate of Aerith has been teased plenty.
Check out our full interview to learn how Kitase and co-director Naoki Hamaguchi took lessons from Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back for Rebirth and the fate of Hamaguchi's beloved cat who made a cameo in Remake.
Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth featuring Cloud on a segway and Red XIII on a Chocobo are what Square Enix thinks keep it true to the original JRPG.
