Crisis Averted, Final Fantasy VII Remake 'Episodes' Will Each Be Full-Sized Games

I felt like this was pretty obvious from the start. Don't understand why people flipped.

@naut A lot of the outrage came from our current understanding of 'episodic', I feel. Plus, it's the internet - why wouldn't you flip?

@ShogunRok As I recall, they never once used the term "episodic." They said "multiple entries" which is a perfectly normal thing to say when speaking of sequels. >_< Episodic was a term coined by the gaming press--Particularly Kotaku from what I saw.

You know what a big part of the problem is? Not a single person working at SquareEnix has a hint of a clue how to convey its messages to the public. It also has earned the current lack of trust among consumers with idiotic decision after idiotic decision since last generation.

Yay.

what i was thinking it would be

@kyleforrester87 i never saw or heard them say it was episodic that was what people on the internet assumed

It seems to me, that they are just playing with words. Almost all of the FF series are games with over 40-50 hours of play. So if they just make a part at 10 hours, it may be like other full games in duration, but still it will only be a fraction for a FF game.
I'll wait for more info, before making a final opinion, but I still have high hopes and tbh I will buy it either way!

@kyleforrester87
I'd give them a pass if this was a one-off, unfortunately it's not. It's not just with its Japanese branch either. The way it went about the 'exclusivity' deal and the vagueness of it in regards to Rise of the Tomb Raider was deplorable and that was the Western part of the company.

Saying it will "have the volume of content equal to a full-sized game," is pretty confusing. Are we talking a 5.5 hour game like The Order: 1886, or a 200+ hour game like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt?

The original game over 3 discs. The remake, 3 installments. Eventually you'll have it all in one go, if you so desire. But, I'll probably be dead by that time so who cares.

FFVII:Avalanche; FFVII:Sephiroth; FFVII:Meteor.

Can't be more than 3 games, or it will end up like the 6 episode Xenosaga series. FYI only 3 games were ever made after they announced 6.

1st part will be short as they rush it out the door to get some money up front. 2nd part will be very long chunk of the main story but not many sidequests. With all of the graphics and assets and battle system done it shoudln't take to long just to code the storyline. 3rd part will be a short part of the main storyline but will have all of the extra story sidequests and missions and such.

Something like that. Hopefully 1 year apart,and all on PS4.

Still vague. If each episode is a full sized Final Fantasy game, sure (think Final Fantasy XIII). I'd just hate it to be a Destiny sized 'full game' experience.

a little less excited about this now that I know it will be episodic. But this won't really be an issue (maybe) if each episode has all the parts of a story structure. Exposition > rising action > climax > falling action > and denouement.
Then I'm ok with it. Especially since the game looks like so much fun.

This is why I wait for full concrete details before going apeshit on the Internet. I knew it wasn't going to be as big of a deal as everyone was making it out to be. I'm still pumped for Final Fantasy 7 Remake. I'm probably going to start on the PS4 port of the original sometime this week so I can appreciate the enhanced version more when it releases. I've never played FF7, so I'm about to see what all the hullabaloo is about with the game, haha.

@kyleforrester87 I don't think they said episodic, the first I saw of that was the article written on here.

It was a slightly clumsy announcement either way but at least it's settled now and we are essentially getting a very big remake ultimately, still hoping for stats/equipment to carry over

I'm only shocked that they sent a message to Kotaku of all places. I guess they're being nice to publishers and not leaking their unannounced games now.

@SoCoSensi420 You'd assume that they mean a full-sized (Final Fantasy) game, but I agree, it's still vague and needs cleared up even if initial fears of it being Telltale Games-esque have been swept aside.

So does this mean that the story and the game will be extended and each piece is going to be a huge chapter? Won't it be a physical release including all chapters like Resident Evil Revelations 2?

You guys overreacted like idiots.

Surely its a good thing. If you had to wait for the finished full game you might have a long wait. By releasing it in episodes the first episode could be here by the end of next year.

@AyeHaley most of the internet did

also is your avatar pic Captain Jackson from Ripper Street?

@ShogunRok
I'm afraid they'll go for scale and enlarge some of the areas where the story takes place to explore. This will distract from the actual story and will come down to some grinding, camping and gathering herbs and food. This way they can make some easy money because they'll reuse VII's story and XV's assets and I'm afraid FFVII remake will be more of a spiritual successor of FFXV gameplay wise, than an actual reimagining of the original.

I commented the other day on how Square Enix develops games with lots of external studios working on all kinds of assets, assets which most likely never be used in the game they're working on. But the easiest way to find use for them, is to make a direct sequel or in this case a remake of a old game; nobody really knows what Midgar looks like if they plan on expanding the worlds so they can reuse a FFXV world for non- story parts, the camping and cooking part etc and there you have your full size game with 75% filler.

@glassmusic haha love it, my thoughts exactly.

I still don't want it peice by peice, I want the game all at once

Haha, you guys do seem a bit excitable at the moment, like you had 20 cups of coffee or something. Curious to see what the next rant will be about.
I do it myself sometimes though, so I guess I can't really talk, haha.

The last two years have been very buyer-beware in the industry, with multiple high profile let-downs, the rise of season passes of questionable value not disclosed ahead of time, pre-order mania, and Konami....

So the interweb's reaction is totally justified in the context of the holistic state of the industry.

Oh like starcraft 2? Not into it rolpeplay games are a all in one sitting deal for me.

It kinda makes sense maybe but now I am VERY tense about this game >_>

Could be awesome as long as what they consider a full game is only lile 5-10 hours. I kinda doubt that will be the case as the original was a massive game with a very large story. They say they want to expand on that and go even deeper into character development and what not. Could be cool to if each entry focuses on a different character but I think everyone wants all Cloud all the time lol.

All my fears have been laid to rest.

I'm fine with multiple huge games, I just dreaded the 15-part episode approach that would've killed any sort of seamless-ness that a JRPG needs to excel.

This will become the most linear final fantasy to date

@AyeHaley It's those sacred cows. You gotta be careful, lest the interwebs call for your head on a stick.

This is better, but still annoying. I'd much rather get the entire thing at once than have to wait for Final Fantasy VII-2 and subsequent ridiculously-named sequels.

I see this as being like the Final Fantasy XIII games. Play them all back to back, and they gel pretty well as one LONG game. I'd be down for that in FF7, too.

@get2sammyb My bad. At first glance, I thought they were going to release digital chapters and, after all of them had been released, a physical edition. Do you think there will be digital and physical editions of each "game"? Like you said, something like XIII, XIII-2 and XIII-Lighting Returns...?

@Gamer83 yeah that hitman episodic announcement didn't help them too much either. It is off putting to hear for sure I don't want my games in bite sized chunks

@rjejr Sounds like you want it in 3 discs//parts like the original.

@wittypixel Wasn't the original 4 discs? I own about a dozen PS1 games, traded in the rest, I only kept the multiple disc games.

Man, it was only 3, I feel so cheated. 8 and 9 were 4, must have lead to my confusion. Would give them some ideas on where to break it up though.

@ReigningSemtex
Some games it works for, others it doesn't. I definitely don't think a Hitman game should be episodic but I truly believe SE won't rest until it has complete ruined some of the franchises it owns. That's the only way some of the decisions makes sense.

Phew... I feel better now. There's a good side to this - we can expect a few outstanding Final Fantasies for a few years, if everything goes as shown at trailers. FF may finally become relevant again!

@get2sammyb
I don't understand how it will work. So they're breaking game into seperate parts. How can it be one fame but in multiple parts?

@naut I didn't think it was obvious, but I understand why this reaction happened since they originally said it would be released in "multiple parts." I found that surprising. If The Witcher 3 is and FFXV will likely be on one disc with the PS4, what in the world are they doing with VII? (ha ha) And most people would conflate "multiple" with a number range of 3-4 (or at least I do), so episodic would be an appropriate term to use in this case. With things cleared up now, you'd think they would do VII and VII-2 or something, but they might just go up to 4. Either way, it's going to be very interesting to see how Square goes about segmenting VII into several parts.

Unf***ed it.

@ShogunRok I sure did. Sent 1 tweet to all of square enix's twitter accounts. All of them. Lol I basically flipped. But what about a full sized world like in the original? I wonder how this will be. I hope it turns out great. And lives up to the original.

@wittypixel I do! That would be awesome.

@Johnnycide correct, but might I add "with more questions, than solved ones"

@Johnnycide correct, but might I add "with more questions, than solved ones"

That's money grubby and greedy though. They'll charge $40 at least per release! Why not just make it disc based where you can buy a season pass physical copy where they send you physical copies of the next parts when they come out? Lol.

So in order to play the full game we have to buy several game's at £55 each, still sound's like a kick in the nut's to me. Doesn't bode well for FFXV if they are selling a what is effectively a remaster in installment's I wonder what they have planned for FFXV's release.

It's a bit odd seeing people so thrown off by this. Quite a few JRPGs have been episodic like this.

.hack - 4 parts
.hack//GU - 3 parts
Xenosaga - 2 parts
Digital Devil Saga - 2 parts

You can also look at WRPGs that do similar things, like Might and Magic III had 2 parts that were bought separately yet formed a single game. Arguably, Baldur's Gate comes in 3 parts since you need BG1, BG2 and ToB to complete the story begun in BG1. Then there are other series where the story continues across games, like Mass Effect, Might and Magic again (VI, VII, VIII are all one story, for example), and games where you'd import your party to the next one were really common, like Ravenloft: Strahd's Possession to Ravenloft: Stone Prophet (as well as most Bioware series, of course).

I wouldn't expect it to conform to the 3 discs of the original, though. That was in no way thirds of the game. Disc 3 was the very end of the game, probably like 1/20 of the total. It had to have many of the previous areas plus a load of FMV on it, though.

@rjejr the original FFVII on PS1 was 3 Discs

FFVIII and FFIX were 4 Disc games though

So wait - if the (1) game is being split up into segments - but each segment is as big a (1) game - then - I'm sorry - math doesn't work that way. FAIL

@Alpha Yup - Sell us the game with a season pass like everyone else - or do what splatoon did - release the game - but role out the rest later - to tell you the truth - I don't see why they don't do that with almost every game - you can test the waters better - and you don't have to put in a huge time investment. And when people buy it - you can use those funds to really hammer the game home.

Just imagine on PS5! Final Fantasy VII Remake Trilogy Remaster!
Hohohoho so awesome! -_-
But honestly I think that will be good.

@get2sammyb but the hobbit was intended to be in 3 part's, this is one game being broken down and sold as seperate game's and I don't remember paying for FFVII 3 time's because there was three disk's I paid once because it's one game. Give us a season pass like everyone else.

What even equates to a full sized game these days? They are still being to vague.

@get2sammyb "Think of it like The Hobbit. One book, but multiple movies, right?"
@xMEADx "but the hobbit was intended to be in 3 part's"
SammyB "Last time I checked The Hobbit was one book."

xMEADx is probably referring to the recent movie adaptation being planned as 3, not the book. Unless he's confusing it with LotR which was 1 book but published in 3 parts. Of course the movie was only meant to be 2 parts, but then they changed it to 3 at the last minute. And the 3rd movie was supposed to come out in July, but then they delayed it until Dec. (I'm a big fan.)

But let The Hobbit be a warning to all of us, lest we forget The Lego Hobbit GAME - not to be confused with the 1 book or the 3 movies - only covers the first 2 movies, not the 3rd, so people paid for an incomplete game based on the promise of DLC for the third movie that never came.

I really wanted that Lego Hobbit game - we have almost every one - but man I'd be so PO'd if I had purchased it on that promise.

Original Hobbit Movie is still the best though. Better than the book, the 3 new movies, or the Lego game. Or the old Hobbit Gamecube game.

@FullbringIchigo Yeah thanks, I checked my collection last night. Really a bummer too, as it disrupted my belief that all good games come on 4 discs. Guess I'll have to modify that belief to all good games come on multiple discs. "3 or more discs" sounds ridiculous.

Whatever their definition of a "full-sized game" is. If the original FF7 is a "full-sized game", then we're getting multiple episodes with 30+ hours worth of content. That would make FF7remake bigger and longer than the original by a helluva lot

Or, The Order: 1886 is what they consider a "full-sized game" at about 5-6 hours. That would mean a handful of episodes would be needed to cover the original's story.

Or. they just add a buttload of collectibles everywhere to pad the playtime

@get2sammyb "three (?) PS4 games."

I was thinking more 2 PS4 games and 1 PS5 game, then the 4k trilogy on PS5.

I'm ok w/ the split, well more than most anyway, but I am honestly nervous about the time frame. FFXII, 2 and 3 did ok, but KH1, 2 and 3 not so much. And even if FFXV isn't truly 10 years, that means FFXIII VS died on the vine. Like Xenosaga 4,5 and 6. I'm not sure I trust Squenix to get it done.

If they give us an actual day and date for part 1 soon, and hit that date, then I'll give it some consideration. Not a demo, a date. Demo for FFXV has been out how long now and the game still doesn't have a date?

As I said before, the whole industry has gone mad. In the future, all games will be kickstarter projects.

It's all good, I'm expecting they'll just pump out a trilogy for it. But this allows for them to tell the original story, elaborate more on certain parts, and get it out in a more timely manor.

@get2sammyb i don't think any individual parts will be on the PS5, Square would be DUMB to split the games user base like that

although i can see the PS5 getting a Complete Edition if the system is out any time near the release of any chapter of this game

Somehow it seems like they've made a lot already. I dunno but this could mean we'll get each part every year for 3 years. I don't think they'll move the last part to PS5.

But thay are not making three full games its Final Fantasy VII Remake, if I am not mistaken that's one game. Are they trying to justify the cost of one part in advance, before they hit you with some ridiculous price or something?

@get2sammyb "Wouldn't be surprised if it wrapped up on PS5 either."

Maybe Sony could take a cue from Apple and call their next gen system the PS4K.

I'd explain that, but then I'd have to admit it wasn't funny. Maybe it could be the name of an in between future "Slim" model?

What does full sized means

I mean, the vanishing of ethan carter its about 2 hours and thats a "full sized game"

Konami tried to pass off Ground Zeroes as a full game. I haven't played it yet, but I heard you can beat it in 30 minutes.

@get2sammyb the fact that CC2 is involved and the game use Unreal Engine instead of proprietary engine... The development may be faster, provided Square Enix doesn't messing too much with the development.

@get2sammyb @rjejr it just doesn't sit right for me I mean it's not like we don't all already know what the story is it's not like they are going to be able to leave us with a cliffhanger at the end of each installment. Either way let's face it it's FFVII man, i'll be buying it i'm just gunna grumble about it a bit first As a quick thought does this mean that if the game is to big to release all at once does that mean FFVII is bigger than FFXV or will they be releasing that the same way?

@xMEADx good question about FFXV but think that FFXV will be one huge game, that's probably why development has taken so long

as for the FFVII Remake if releasing it in parts gets it to us quicker then i'm fine with that, it's not like it hasn't been done before with games especially now a days, take Mass Effect - 3 Games, One Story or Kingdom Hearts, One Story and 9 Games (although i hope the FFVII Remake is more like Mass Effect in that regard ^_^)

@xMEADx "does this mean that it's bigger than FFXV or will they be releasing that the same way"

Well, FFXV has been in production for 10 years if you count it's FFXIII VS origins, so it may be as big as FFVII but maybe Squenix doesn't want to wait 10 years to release the remake, so they feel it's better to get FFVII out in parts. Which, based on the 10 year FFXV timeline, could mean 2017, 2020 and 2023.

Anyway it's not about the game being too big or wanting to get it out sooner "for the fans", it's all about the money. They want $ now, not in 2023. I am hopeful for a reasonable division of funds. For starters, nobody will buy 2 or 3 w/o 1, it isn't 3 games (assuming it's 3) it's one game. But each game will be playable stand alone I think, like Uncharted. (I really wish they would make Uncharted into 1 game w/ 1 timeline, I hated the beginning of U3, would like to get it out of the way ASAP, ahem) But each game should also fit together as if it's DLC. They probably haven't decided that part yet. Might as well be DLC since nobody will play 2 or 3 w/o 1, but I think they'd rather have it on shelves, so they need to work independently.

Pricing is really tricky though. I want this, have wanted it for years and years, maybe since the FFX engine, but I don't want to pay $180 to replay it. I'd just get the PC version on sale for $5. So maybe they charge $40 per game instead? Still $120, but 50% better than $180. And I'd really like to see a discount for those willing to pay up front, like a 6 year early pre-order. If each game is set to be $40, maybe pay $80 up front for part 1 to get 2 and 3 at no additional charge? Discount should depend on how long we have to wait. The longer the wait, the bigger the discount. If it's 2017, 2018, 2019 I'd pay $100 for all 3 if they are $40 each. Not if it's 2017, 2020, 2023, then I'll just pay $40 each when they release. I'm 50, I could be dead by 2023.

Sorry so long, I've been giving this a lot of thought since E3. I know they only announced they were breaking it up a few days ago, but I've been wondering since E3 how long before it released and what I would be willing to pay to play it. And if I would live long enough to see it.

@naut right! I am totally looking forward to having a multi volume episode version of FF7. it will be like the ZenoSaga series on the PS2 - which i wish that they would re-release for the PS4. I think that they are going to put a lot of good effort into it as this Final fantasy game is what nearly everyone remembers when they think of the franchise. i hope that we also get ports of the rest of the final fantasys as well. 6, 8, 9, and 12. you know Square soft could have gone a different direction in only putting out FF7 on they Playstation Now game streaming, which i am glad they didn't. i think that would have sucked for everyone.

@FullbringIchigo ya, i think that if anything they would up-rez it for the next-gen console. but fortunately the PS4 is based on x86 platform which will make porting it to newer x86 processors in the next gen consoles WAY easier. who knows by that time, it could all go to streaming based media, via Playstation Now.

@get2sammyb See, this is what happens with all your "off topic" comments, I have to go back 4 months to ask you a question.

But before that, go back and read my very prophetic post #78, remember, I wrote that in December.

Ok, multipart FF7 remake I think needs to be in 2 parts. If it's 3 parts, say 1 year apart, what incentive is there for anybody to buy part 2 day 1? People will rush out to buy 1 just to see it, but why not wait to get part 2 a month before part 3? And at that point why not just wait for a box set? And I think some people, now that the hysteria has died down a bit, will say - 3 parts?, I'll just wait for all of them. 2 parts, day 1 for both, no question. Plus $120 is much better than $180.

Now I know other games have been in 3 parts, Xenosaga for 1, but those were new games with new stories. People bought them for the story. What could be in part 2 of 3 of FF7 that would make it a day 1 purchase? And if it's 2 or 3 years between games rather than 1, why buy 2 day 1, just wait a year and get it for $20 BF and still have a year to finish before 3 releases.

It will probably be 3, but 2 makes way more sense. I'll pass if it's 3, waited 20 years, what's another 10?

PS4k Ultra - you heard it here first.