Final Fantasy VII Remake Trilogy

Following the announcement of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, Square Enix confirmed that its Remake series will be spread across three games. However, during the earlier days of development, that wasn't necessarily the case. In a recent Famitsu interview (via VGC), Remake director Tetsuya Nomura and producer Yoshinori Kitase admit that they considered making this a two-part saga.

"The reason we didn’t announce how many parts there would be until now was because we were considering whether it would be a trilogy or a two-part series," says Nomura, referencing the fact that we didn't get confirmation of a trilogy until just last month.

"Originally, I was planning a trilogy, but Kitase suggested that they would like to explore the possibility of a two-part series," he continues.

Kitase goes on to explain that the development schedule couldn't be finalised until the team had a better understanding of the project's overall scope: "At the beginning of development for Final Fantasy VII Remake, it was difficult to see how many man-hours and what kind of development cycle would be necessary, but by the time we finished, we could understand the required man-hours and schedule. Therefore, in truth, I thought that there might be an option to make it to the end in the next game."

Given that Final Fantasy VII Remake takes place entirely within the city of Midgar — the opening section of the original Final Fantasy VII that lasts just several hours — wrapping things up in a single sequel would probably be a tall order. Turning it into trilogy seems to make a lot more sense — even if Remake's story is pushing the adventure in a new direction.

But you could also argue that Remake is stretched pretty thin to begin with, transforming the relatively compact Midgar arc into a 30+ hour, standalone game. With that in mind, we can certainly see why the development team might have considered a duology at one point or another.

What do you think of Square Enix's decision to slice Remake's story into three pieces? Could it have worked over two games? Write some fan fiction in the comments section below.

[source famitsu.com, via videogameschronicle.com]