Now that Final Fantasy 7 Revelation is coming up, the question is what Square Enix focuses on next. Will we see more remakes, or a return to newer ideas and games? A producer on the franchise believes the latter, unless there's an opportunity to do something special.
In an interview with IGN, Yoshinori Kitase, a higher-up at Square Enix, director of Final Fantasy 7 and producer on the remake trilogy, speaks about the philosophy currently guiding the developer and publisher. "I think that mainly, we are more likely to invest in new titles and new games," he says.
"But at the same time, for example, this time with the [Final Fantasy 7] remake, there were me and other creators who worked on the original game, which we had really strong feelings towards," he adds.
Indeed, one of the strengths of this trilogy is that you have devs who were there the first time and newer creatives involved, all helping to rejuvenate the 1997 classic.
In terms of remaking any installment, 7 always seemed worthwhile. It's extremely well-regarded, but the original could be off-putting to newer players because of its slower pacing. Kitase mentions that specifically, and says Square Enix remains open to such opportunities on a case-by-case basis.
"We really wanted to create something new related to the old game to allow new users to play and to know the appeal of this game as much as the old users who play the old game," he states. "So there might be different cases like this one where the company is willing to invest in remaking old projects and other kinds of games like it happened this time."
A remake of Final Fantasy 9 was apparently happening until this past summer, when reports emerged that the project was now languishing for whatever reason. I could see 8 and 9 getting revisited some day, in a similar fashion to 7, but I suspect management wants to resist turning Final Fantasy, and the company in general, into pure nostalgia bait. In light of these comments, I imagine Final Fantasy 17 is more likely to be revealed before, say, a remake of Final Fantasy 6. Would I be too greedy to ask for both?
