Is the Final Fantasy 7 Remake trilogy actually an alt-universe sequel series? Where/when the hell is Zack Fairs? What are those shadowy Whispers doing? Will Cloud end up with Barret after all? The trilogy's director, Naoki Hamaguchi, doesn't intend to answer fans' biggest theories because that would only spoil the fun, he says.
Final Fantasy 7 Remake and its sequel, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, are pretty liberal reimaginings of the original game. They loosely follow the contours of 1997's classic, but there are so many changes chucked in that calling them straight remakes is a little tough. Heck, Rebirth even introduces diverging timelines into the mix and practically invites fans to start scribbling on their walls like the Charlie Day meme.
But Hamaguchi was actually surprised at how deeply fans jumped into various rabbit holes, he says in an interview with Nintenderos, per machine translations. Still, he doesn't want to start ticking off certain theories because "the moment we start doing that, the story ceases to be an experience to be received and becomes a search for the 'right answer.'"
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When approaching the still-ongoing Remake trilogy, Hamaguchi explains the team wanted to modernize the original story but also leave enough room for players to continue interpreting everything for themselves. Even turning Final Fantasy 7 into a three-part series played into this idea since Hamaguchi bet on fans engaging with its big story twists in between games.
"The fact that this has generated so much discussion among fans is, to me, a clear sign that this design is working as we intended," he says.
Hamaguchi's silence is understandable. The trilogy raises lots of interesting meta questions about the nature of remakes, returning to something as iconic as Final Fantasy 7, and struggling against ones' fate. But those juicy thematic discussions often get eclipsed online by debates around what's really happening.
Asked more specifically about those sequel theories in an interview with Inverse two years ago, Hamaguchi played coy. "The original title is a work that has a ton of fans, and a very well-known storyline," he said. "When you're implementing small changes along the way, I do believe that this evokes a sense of anxiety, in a good way... As for how it will play out, of course, we want players to see for themselves. As far as the reactions that we're getting, it's as we expected, and we're happy to hear that."
All right, then, keep your secrets. Maybe we just need to wait for the trilogy's finale before getting any concrete answers, which shouldn't be too long from now as Hamaguchi's played through Final Fantasy 7 Remake Part 3 about 40 times now.
After the Final Fantasy 7 Remake trilogy is done, its director wants to expand the long-running JRPG series for a whole new generation
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