Development of 'Final Fantasy VII' remake shifts to Square Enix; game could be three years away

By Gabe Gurwin May 30, 2017

Remaking Final Fantasy VII, one of the most acclaimed games of all time, is no easy task, and developer Square Enix appears to be having trouble with the project’s development thus far. After struggling with outside developer CyberConnect2, the company has decided to shift development of the remake to an internal team.

In a YouTube video spotted by Polygon, project leader Naoki Hamaguchi revealed that he would be taking over control of the project, and his language makes it sound like Square Enix was not happy with the work being done on the game thus far.

“So far, development has been carried out mainly with the support of external partners. However, in view of factors such as improving quality when the product goes into mass production in the future, the company has decided to shift the developmental system back to within the company, so as to maintain a stable schedule and have control over factors such as quality,” he said.

Don’t expect to hear very much about the Final Fantasy VII remake in the near future, or even the not-so-near future. Square Enix president Yosuke Matsude recently revealed that the game would be released “in the next three years or so,” which is the same time frame he gave for Kingdom Hearts III.

Hiring for the project appears to have increased as development shifts to Square Enix’s internal studios, but we probably shouldn’t be too surprised at the delay — last year’s Final Fantasy XV was originally announced back in 2006 with a completely different name.

The original Final Fantasy VII hasn’t exactly aged well, and Square Enix is giving the game a complete overhaul, including a move to real-time combat that’s similar to its most recent games. The remake will be released episodically, though the publisher refers to each segment as “a full-scale game.”

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Gabe Gurwin has been playing games since 1997, beginning with the N64 and the Super Nintendo. He began his journalism career…

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Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth: Queen’s Blood tips and tricks

Queen's Blood

After Fort Condor arrived in Final Fantasy 7: Remake Intergrade, you may not have expected an entirely new minigame to be introduced in Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth. However, after the opening hours, when you're let loose in Kalm, you will automatically be given your very first deck of Queen's Blood cards. While this minigame is entirely optional after you play your first game to learn the basics, you would be missing out on a ton of content and secrets, let alone fun, by ignoring it. Still, we understand if you feel you didn't sign up for a strange new card game in your Final Fantasy adventure. Plus, there is a lot more depth to the game than is properly explained. If you want to rise up the ranks and be a Queen's Blood champion, but are unsure how to start, we'll show you the ropes.
The basics

The tutorial for Queen's Blood does a decent job explaining the basic rules of Queen's Blood, but it goes by rather quickly and may leave some things a little unclear until you play a few rounds.

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Cloud from FFVII

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Cloud from Final Fantasy VII Rebirth.

Just like in Remake, you only have one valuable armor slot per character in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. Deciding on what you want to put there is more complicated than you think, since each piece of armor has multiple factors that determine how effective it will be, and you may want to prioritize different things for different characters. New armor will become available as you go deeper into the world of Gaia, and you can even make some yourself with the new Transmutation system, so comparing and contrasting them all can be a major chore. We get it, you're just a merc looking to get the job done, so let us worry about figuring out the best armors so you can just put them on and get back to the action.
The best armor in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth
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Garm Bangle

The Garm Bangle is an amazing piece of physical-focused armor that becomes available once you hit the Nibel region. It has a fantastic 59 rating for regular defense, aplus a decent 28 for magic defense to keep you from being totally vulnerable to spells. Offensively, it has two pairs of linked Materia slots plus a spare, so you can still make plenty of killer magic combos for your mages.
Hades Armlet