Final Fantasy 7 Remake trilogy lead Naoki Hamaguchi may be working towards what's shaping up to be the biggest and boldest installment yet, the grand finale of Revelation, but it turns out that, of the three, the first game was the hardest to make.
In an interview with French content creator mistermv, translated by Genki on Twitter (and verified by GamesRadar+), Hamaguchi is asked what the biggest development challenge of the trilogy has been, and he immediately points back to where it all began.
For a start, the development team was much smaller in the beginning. At first, Hamaguchi notes, the team was only comprised of 30 people – a number obviously eclipsed by the final credits on the game.
But more than that, Remake also had the challenge of setting up what would follow it. The start of the project meant deciding on the entire visual look and graphical quality for the Remake trilogy, for example, all while working to the pressure of pleasing the many massive FF7 fans, with the worry of the devs' efforts being insufficient in meeting players' lofty expectations.
On the other hand, Rebirth and Revelation were able to follow in the footsteps of the foundation built by Remake – while they may have been larger and more ambitious, as Hamaguchi puts it, they had a base to go on, and the team working on them had grown and evolved, too.
Hamaguchi and other FF leads have previously spoken about how creating the Final Fantasy 7 remake in the trilogy format has allowed the devs to take on feedback between installments, too, hopefully making each experience better than the last for players. For example, Hamaguchi is aware that many players felt that Rebirth had an overwhelming amount of content, and while Revelation "probably" has even more, the devs have made some key differences in signposting what side-content will earn you what rewards, and ultimately making it easier for players to decide what they care about pursuing.
