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Final Fantasy 7 Remake series director Naoki Hamaguchi says that PlayStation's story-driven games were an inspiration for the remake.
When it comes to remakes, it's hard to imagine any had as much anticipation as Final Fantasy 7 Remake, a project requested by fans pretty much the second the PS3 tech demo featuring a recreation of the game appeared back in 2005. Ten years on from that demo, the anticipation had only grown to become one of the holy grail game announcements when it was finally announced. However, Final Fantasy 7 Remake – even ignoring the episodic release and timeline stuff – was a very different game, taking an approach more in line with modern AAA games.
In an interview with YouTuber Joesephyr (spotted by Genki_JPN on Twitter), Hamaguchi was asked which games most inspired the work he did on the Final Fantasy 7 Remake. "Obviously, the first game in the series – Final Fantasy 7 Remake – was a very story-driven game," Hamaguchi says (via an interpreter), adding that the things that inspired the development of that included "other story-driven games, things like God of War, for example, or The Last of Us."
However, as for Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth (which saw Hamaguchi change up from co-director to director), he talked about how its formula took a more open-world approach and, as such, was inspired more by the likes of The Witcher 3 and, again, The Last of Us. So wherever the third part (Final Fantasy 7: Reunion? Return? Rewind? Recede? I'm covering all angles so I can be right) takes us, one thing is for sure: The Last of Us will probably be an inspiration again.
