Is the FF7 Part 3 reveal close?

Let's go. All right. So, I'm going to I'm going to focus on the big things because yeah, Hamaguchi's once again big yapping about uh FF7 Rebirth. The demo just came out. I'm going to try it. We're going to see how it is. There's more talking about part three, of course. Um, and again, we're not going to get an opportunity to to do this, right? There's a chance it could get announced soonish. So, these are potentially the last moments and videos and opportunities we have to not know anything about part three until we eventually do. So, excuse me if I'm going to revel in this a bit. What lessons have from uh, and by the way, this is at comicbook.com. I'll make sure there's a link for it. What lessons from the rest of the FF7 remake saga have proven to be the most important to you as a developer? And how are they impacting the third entry in the saga? That's a good ass question. Um, Amaguchi explains, "Across the entire remake project, the guiding philosophy has been to progressively expand the scale of the gameplay experience with each entry rather than repeat the same experience. Remake established an experience centering on engaging deeply with story and characters, while Rebirth moved towards an even more expansive experience that included things like the world map. The series isn't about rehashing the same gameplay just because it's a remake. And yeah, this has been discussed time and time again. We've talked about the issue with like sequels to games, how they feel like minor expansions to previous titles, like the the, you know, God of War to like like God of War 2018 to Ragnarok and Doom to Doom Eternal. It's like, yeah, these games are great, but it's like very familiar, you know, and I really didn't feel that way with remakes of Rebirth. It was so vastly different the way you're like engaging with this game compared to the previous one. So, it felt genuinely fresh. I consider this project we've pushed ourselves to ask how much further can we expand this uh with each new entry for the third installment. We're not thinking about simply just wrapping up everything we've built up to until this point. Uh rather we're focused on how the full scale of the series we've been aiming for could ultimately be realized as a complete experience. That way of thinking is deeply reflecting in our current development process. I think you could also look uh forward to the highwind which I know many people are curious about. Yeah, they've talked about high wind being a key and critical element in uh part three going all the way back until like mid 2024 when they were doing the the Saudi interviews and stuff like that when they go over there for like a convention. We're focused on how the full scale of the series we've been aiming for could ultimately be realized as a complete experience. That's interesting cuz it mostly seems like they can pick and choose the things that have done well and haven't done well with part three. Hm. Yeah. Yeah. It's more It's better to have purpose and engagement over scale. I agree with you. It's the thing that you really realize in FF7 Rebirth on a sec on a second playthrough. You know, you're doing everything and having fun completing stuff. And on second playthrough, you're not really finding anything. You're just going to checkpoints. And I didn't mind that on the first playthrough, but on the second, it's like, okay, yeah, we're kind of just repeating this process all over again. Um, again, the nice part is that I think the highwind isn't just tied to having a cool airship. I think it is the whole point of them talking about this stuff is that they are no longer limited. A realization that part one and part two are specifically storybound by what the characters can do and where they can go. So they don't have access to eventually get to a point in those games where you're just going to have everything, right? Like like an like Final Fantasy 7 OG. Eventually you just get everything like at the end of uh at the end of certain story beats. So now they do, right? Part three is like everything. All the [ __ ] that worked really good before, all the stuff that is like that led him to a point where all these systems are built and put into place. And to me, I think that's the high win where now you have an airship, bro. Even in expedition 33, you get Esa pretty early, man. Like he he gets acquired pretty early, but you still have to do a lot of like onfoot travel and there's a lot of discovery that still happens in that, you know, miniature open world that even has in that game. What I'm trying to say is that I think this is all tied to exploration. I really do. I think the entire reason they're hyping up the Highwind and talking about all these systems and all these things is that they're going to be able to put a lot of [ __ ] into the world now because they're not limited. They're not limited by where you can go and what you can do. They have the entire world map now. There most likely is just going to be the full realization of the original Final Fantasy 7. We're in part three, dude. I think they're going to even expand it. I lit I legit think there's going to be Skies of Arcadia type [ __ ] even though I haven't played that game, but I know what's in it. I think there's going to be air combat. I think there's legit going to be like inair combat uh when you have to fight enemies or other Shinra ships in the air and stuff like that or aerial monsters and stuff like that. I think that will be there. But I I I think that's cool. That is neat. But the game effectively being a sort of guided globe trotting kind of like adventure, which is what part two was. I don't know if that's going to be there as much. I really don't cuz that isn't dude that isn't the way in the original Final Fantasy 7. Once you get the airship in the OG FF7, once you're done with the Junon part of the game, it's just like, where the hell do we go? What do we do? Oh my god. And that's a really great feeling. That's a That's a That's a good feeling when that happens. And it's like, oh, I'm just going to go start looking for stuff. You know, once you get the high win in this game, I think they want to do that. I would I would hope that they would want to do that. I kind of think that there's a chance that this one gameplay-wise and overall like worldwise because if it's not it's not bound anymore to being specifically in certain story segments like part one and part two. This one has the chance to actually be like legit really [ __ ] good. And it depends on how they want to do it. But I I don't think it is going to be a go to each area and activate the remnant wave towers so you can see where all the duads are and then go collect stuff. I don't think it's going to be that again. I think they're literally going to I think Chadley's going to get iced, bro. I'll be real. I think the best thing you can do with Chadley is make you feel bad that you hated him so much. What can you tease about the next entry? I'm unable to share concrete details. What I can say is that development itself is proceeding on time and on schedule. We believe it'll become a a title we can deliver with confidence as the culmination to the trilogy. We know many fans are eagerly awaiting and preparations towards the announcement are steadily underway. Wow. Please look forward just a little longer. Before they kind of gave very vague answers about this, which is like sort of tentatively and they would say soon, they would say, you know, please be patient, stuff like that. But now they're like preparations towards the announcement are underway. So please look forward to it. Now they're saying, "Oh no, we're working on the announcement right now." Again, chat, um, just to reestablish my feelings on this because, you know, it's there's a lot of information. Uh, I still think this game comes out probably the end of February, uh, 2027. I don't think it drops. A lot of people saw that Cold Born, Blood, Ice, ice mod, cold stuff, Final Fantasy 14 thing, Ever Cold. people saw that Evercold thing that had like Final Fantasy 7 crossover stuff in it and that was coming out in January and people would assume that oh that means that they're not going to relaunch anywhere close to that. That that [ __ ] ain't happening anywhere. So Final Fantasy 7 is going to be way out there, you know. However, I will I will say there's a thing called a a fiscal year in Japan, chat, and the fiscal year ends technically on April 1st in Japan. That is when their actual financial year ends. What happens is you get a lot of companies like Bandynamco and Square Enix and also Capcom that release a lot of games like right at the end of the year and the end of their financial year is literally January, February, March and there'll be a ton of games released usually in that time frame to try to meet the meet that deadline to impress all the investors and [ __ ] So anyway, the Final Fantasy 7 30-year anniversary is at the end of January and next year. I don't think it's coming out on that date. I don't think so. I do think that having Everold and Crossover and potentially like other things happening like, you know, character appearances or whatever, I think that all starts happening right around that time frame because you don't want to conflict with it. You don't want to release something right at the same time frame, but if it comes out a month earlier, that's perfect. So whether or not there are other crossover opportunities that are happening, much less the Evercold expansion for Final Fantasy 14, yeah, that should happen in January and then the game comes out in February. To me, that just makes sense. That's usually how marketing works. I just personally think it's coming out end of February. That was the initial release date for Final Fantasy 7. It was right around end of February and early March until it got delayed and Rebirth came out right at the end of February. I think it's coming out in that time frame, dude. Given the natural surprises that occur during development cycles, what has surprised you the most about the FF7 remakes and how they've come together? This is the last bit of this interview. The full interview is up on comicbook.com. Please go check it out. Hamaguchi says, "Spending more than a decade working on the same AAA title is an extremely rare experience for a developer. Even now, I'm taken back to know that more than 10 years have passed without me realizing it since I first began working on FF7 remakes series. At the same time, now that the end of the trilogy is clearly in sight, I feel a strong sense that we'll be able to deliver this final installment with confidence. I'm also struck by the fact that even after dedicating over a decade of my career to this project, I feel no negativity about that time at all. I simply feel a renewed sense of gratitude towards FF7 for giving me the opportunity to work on something truly worthy of this level of time and commitment. Why is this guy such a sweetheart? [ __ ] Damn. Well, that's a nice way to end that, Chad. I truly feel that the majority of all of these things have been planned out since the beginning portions of development. And even when they were thinking about what you could do with the high wind in part three and things like that, I think they were already developing those those scenarios like behind the scenes ahead of time. Like I legit do. And they're just like, "So, we don't have the tech for this yet. We'll figure it out. You know, we will figure it out." And then part one helps them figure out part two and part two helps them figure out part three. Like I just think that's how it goes.