The people behind the Final Fantasy VII Remake want players to be “fully immersed” in the highly anticipated RPG, so the game will not have any disruptions from loading screens.
In an interview with The Washington Post’s Launcher, producer Yoshinori Kitase, co-director Naoki Hamaguchi, and brand manager Shinji Hashimoto talked about how they aimed to perfect the legacy of the original Final Fantasy VII with the upcoming remake.
Hamaguchi said that while fans of the RPG were kept “waiting for quite some time,” he believes that the advance preparations that allowed Square Enix to “maintain a certain development speed” within the production phase led to what he believes is “a very high-quality game.”
The Final Fantasy VII Remake co-director provided the lack of loading screens in the RPG’s demo as an example of the results of Square Enix’s preparations. The developers laid down the groundwork early in the development cycle for assets to load in the background during gameplay, so that there will be no loading screens “to allow players to be fully immersed in the game.”
Immersion in Final Fantasy VII Remake
Immersion is a recurring theme in the interview, as Hamaguchi also revealed there were some instances from the story of the original Final Fantasy VII that felt out of place when the scenes were upgraded to modern graphics. In those instances, Square Enix had to make adjustments to the plot or its delivery.
Hamaguchi pointed to the events between Wall Market and the Shinra Building, which happen overnight in the original Final Fantasy VII. In the remake, he said that “it would have been strange to depict everything as happening in one night,” which would disrupt player engrossment. To maintain the engagement, Square Enix added new story details and incorporated time elements.
“How immersive the story feels to the player is extremely important to the Final Fantasy VII Remake project,” Hamaguchi said.
In the interview, Kitase also explained that Square Enix decided to split the Final Fantasy VII Remake into episodes to “focus on keeping everything people loved from the original, but go into greater detail and more story depth than before.”
The Final Fantasy VII Remake is set to launch on April 10, though Square Enix flagged possible delays in the RPG’s arrival to players.
