The Final Fantasy 7 Remake had been the stuff of gaming legends until it was revealed at that magical Sony E3 2015 Press Conference. Now, almost two years later, reality is proving to be quite different from "magic," and Square Enix has already said that the game will not make its debut in 2017. Between the "trial and error" and the "progress" it has made, it's hard to know where things stand considering how vague Square Enix is being while keeping the specter of Final Fantasy XV's ten-year development from permanently souring the excitement.
One indication appears to have come through as members of Square Enix's core staff have posted recruitment messages to work on the Final Fantasy 7 Remake to "further strengthen" its development. Those staff members include Business Executive Yoshinori Kitase, Development Leader Naoki Hamaguchi, and of course the series' legendary Game Director Tetsuya Nomura.
Nomura's message seems to be the clearest in terms of details, which makes sense given that he is the Game Director. Here is his message as translated by Siliconera.
I believe that many of us developers share the same feeling that Final Fantasy VII is a special title.
Twenty years have gone by and the number of generations that aren’t familiar with Final Fantasy VII is increasing, so we must remake the game using today’s technology and systems in order to make it into a title that can last several more decades.
Reproducing the world of Final Fantasy VII in high-definition requires an extraordinary amount of time and resources, so we’ll need all the help we can get to shorten that.
As those of you concerned with the industry may already know, the number of domestic staff is significantly lower compared to that of foreign high-definition developers. Therefore, in order to further strengthen the development of this title, we must urgently recruit as much staff as possible.
By all means, please join us in delivering the world of Final Fantasy VII, once again.
There's no telling how far the first episode of the Final Fantasy 7 Remake is from seeing a release, but given the "extraordinary amount of time" that Nomura references, we could be in for a wait. Hopefully, it's not a ten-year one.
Source: [Siliconera via IGN]
