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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