In an interview with Famitsu, Final Fantasy VII Remake director Tetsuya Nomura revealed some key information about the upcoming games in the franchise. He explained each game’s concept, revealed some details surrounding FFVII Remake Intergrade‘s character’s and bosses, and how FFVII Ever Crisis will tie all of the games together. He also revealed that he’s planning on passing the title of director to Naoki Hamaguchi from the next installment onwards. [Thanks, Famitsu!]
Nomura is currently the director for FFVII: Ever Crisis, The First Soldier, and Intergrade. Nomura added that he will continue to stay on as creative director for any games involving the FFVII franchise, and that this will not change how involved he will be with future titles.
Here are some highlights from the Famitsu interview:
- “Final Fantasy VII Ever Crisis will be a compilation game that ties together all of the events of the FFVII games, including the events of the upcoming title FFVII The First Soldier. Each title in the FFVII storyline will get its own episodic release. This includes the events of The First Soldier, with scenarios written by [Kazushige] Nojima.“
- “Since it’s set before the founding of SOLDIER, players will also get to see the early days of a certain ‘legendary hero’.”
- “Character voices for Ever Crisis are still under consideration. I’m working on so many titles and have so many recording sessions scheduled that I’m trying to avoid adding new ones. We’ve even considered doing away with character voices entirely, but felt they may be necessary during battles. Regardless, if we were to add them they would be minimal.”
- “I’m working on more titles now than I’ve ever worked on before. I’m starting to see some improvements that can be made, and since Final Fantasy VII Remake has already had a solid release, [Naoki] Hamaguchi (who was co-director on Remake) will be the director for the next installment. I will still stay on as creative director for any FFVII-related titles, and this will not change how much involvement I have with the titles.”
- “We decided on Weiss as the antagonist in Final Fantasy VII Remake Integrade because we wanted a strong, intimidating alternative to Sephiroth. This will be the first game where Cloud and Weiss will fight; something that I personally wanted to see ever since the PS4 release.”
- “There will also be a boss in Yuffie’s storyline that is different from Weiss in the new episode.”
- “The title ‘Intergrade‘ (meaning ‘middle ground’) was chosen to symbolize its position between Remake and the next installment. It’s also an homage to FFVII International, the international release that added some tweaks and improvements to the game.”
Square Enix announced Final Fantasy VII Ever Crisis, The First Soldier, and Remake Intergrade at the PlayStation State of Play. Both Ever Crisis and The First Soldier will be available on iOS and Android devices, while the FFVII Remake port will come to PS5 on June 10, 2021. The First Soldier will release in 2021, and Ever Crisis is slated for a release in 2022.
