Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth director talks about making sure everyone is all caught up

Naoki Hamaguchi discusses the importance of making sure all players on all platforms are caught up with the Final Fantasy 7 Remake saga so far.

For the second time this year, Xbox and Nintendo Switch 2 owners are about to receive a Final Fantasy 7 title. Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, the Remake saga's second chapter, is out this week, less than six months after the release of Final Fantasy 7 Remake Intergrade. With both chapters now available on all three major consoles, as well as PC, everyone should be caught up with the Remake story up to this point. To explain why that's important, I chatted with Game Director Naoki Hamaguchi via email to discuss Rebirth's new platforms and what it potentially means for the series going forward.

Shacknews: It's interesting to me that Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is coming to Nintendo Switch 2 and Xbox so quickly after Final Fantasy 7 Remake. Are there reasons for this timing? Were both games in development for Switch 2 and Xbox simultaneously?

Naoki Hamaguchi, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth Game Director: When considering the overall roadmap for the Remake series moving forward, we felt that in this new multiplatform environment, players should be able to experience the games without a long gap between releases. It feels more natural for players to enjoy the story and overall experience as a continuous journey, and it also helps maintain the momentum and excitement surrounding the series. With that in mind, our approach and development philosophy for the Switch 2 and Xbox versions have been consistent from the very beginning. Furthermore, this was not simply a matter of expanding to additional platforms. Final Fantasy 7 Remake and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth themselves were developed in parallel as part of a broader long-term plan for the remake series as a whole.

In terms of the development process, we adopted a phased approach: first, through Remake, we developed a thorough understanding of the characteristics and technical requirements of each hardware platform, and then we applied the knowledge and experience gained there to the development of Rebirth. We're able to deliver Remake and Rebirth in close succession today as a result of the accumulated preparation and planning that were underway in tandem.

Shacknews: How important is it to the team to make sure that the players on Switch 2 and Xbox are all caught up on the Final Fantasy 7 Remake saga just like everybody else on PlayStation and PC?

Hamaguchi: I believe this is something of critical importance, both for the team and for me, personally. The gaming landscape today has become extremely diverse, and it is no longer realistically possible to deliver an experience to as many game fans as possible through a single platform alone.

That is precisely why we felt it was necessary to expand the range of supported platforms and create an environment where more players could access the same gameplay experience. What matters most here is not simply which hardware version sells the most, but rather how broadly the game is accepted by players across all platforms. For players, that sense of reassurance itself leads to trust in the content.

The Final Fantasy 7 Remake project is a series built around a continuous narrative. As such, I now believe that creating an environment where as many players as possible can experience the story within the same timeframe, without being restricted to a particular platform, is not just a release strategy, but a fundamental requirement for the series' success.

Shacknews: Were there challenges in porting Rebirth to these new platforms that you may not have encountered in your work in porting Remake?

Hamaguchi: After the demo was released, I saw many comments saying, "It's like a magical port." I’m truly grateful for that reaction.

However, from a development standpoint, it was not something achieved through a single creative solution. In particular, because Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth adopted an open-world structure, the amount and density of information being processed on the world map at any given moment is an entirely different level compared to the previous title. The system load changes significantly depending on where the player is, which direction they are facing, and what route they take. Porting the game while accounting for all of those conditions was not something that could be solved simply by fixing one specific area.

In practice, it felt like the only option was to identify the conditions that caused issues, one-by-one, and continue making adjustments while looking at the world as a whole. The final experience came together through that kind of steady and painstaking accumulation of work, rather than being resolved all at once like magic. That is why, rather than thinking of this as a "magical port," I personally see it more as an "incremental port," something built by addressing problems individually and steadily building upon improvements over time. Above all else, we were only able to see this through because of the development team, who shared the same vision and remained committed to this process until the very end. For that, I am sincerely grateful.

Shacknews: I imagine there wasn't a lot of optimization trouble on Xbox, but were there challenges in making sure the file sizes for Remake and Rebirth on Switch 2 weren't too big for those users?

Hamaguchi: First, I think there may be a slight misunderstanding regarding the idea that there wasn't a lot of optimization trouble on Xbox. While it is true that the Xbox Series X offers very high specifications, the Series S comes with fairly strict memory limitations, and that is a common challenge shared by developers across the industry. Our development process was certainly no exception.

On the other hand, the Switch 2 presented a different kind of challenge altogether. As we continued optimizing the game to support the rendering demands of an open-world environment, certain approaches naturally tended to increase the overall data size. It was never simply a matter of making the game lighter. We constantly had to consider how to make the experience work properly and how much we could reduce the file size simultaneously.

As a development team, we approached the Switch 2 version with a very clear goal in mind: to somehow keep the total data size to double digits under 100GB. At this point, we believe we are on track to land at roughly the same size as Remake, and we hope this will help reduce the storage burden on players as much as possible. Although the challenges differed depending on the platform, one of our major themes throughout the entire porting process was ensuring a smooth and reliable gameplay experience across all environments. At the same time, we worked to balance optimization and file size reduction without compromising that foundation.

Shacknews: Lastly, there are some Rebirth players who will be happy to experience the story a second or third time on these new platforms. Are there any technical or narrative details you'd like those fans to be on the lookout for as they play one more time?

Hamaguchi: For players revisiting Rebirth on these new platforms for a second or even third playthrough, I would really encourage them to try experiencing it on a handheld device as well. I think playing it on something like the Switch 2 or ROG Xbox Ally may offer a slightly different perspective on how the game can be enjoyed.

Rebirth is an open-world title with a strong narrative focus, but being able to engage with it naturally while on the go — whether that means exploring the world map for a short while or playing just one match of Queen's Blood — is something that feels unique to today’s environment. As developers, we are continually impressed by how far technology has come, allowing games of this scale to be played anywhere. In addition, experiencing dramatic story scenes in a setting outside your home may evoke emotions in a slightly different way than before. I believe that the fact that the same story can leave a different impression depending on where and when you play it is one of the unique pleasures of replaying a game. It would make me happy if players could engage with it freely in a way that suits their own lifestyles, especially because it'd be their second or third playthrough. I hope everyone will be able to savor Rebirth in their own way, within their own environment.

For more on Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, be sure to check out Donovan Erskine's Switch 2 impressions, which went up earlier today.

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