Final Fantasy 7 remake is episodic
UPDATE: "We've seen everyone's comments and reactions..."
UPDATE 11TH DECEMBER: Not everybody welcomed news that the Final Fantasy 7 remake will be episodic. The original game people enjoyed in one chunk - why fragment the experience now?
Square Enix felt the feedback and issued a response to it. Producer Yoshinori Kitase wrote in a blog post that "a proper" remake simply wouldn't fit into one instalment without cuts.
"Producing a proper HD remake of Final Fantasy 7 that maintains the same feeling of density of the original would result in a volume of content that couldn't possibly fit into one instalment," he said. "We've seen everyone's comments and reactions to the news that Final Fantasy 7 remake will be a multi-part series and many have speculated correctly as to the reason why we have made this decision. If we were to try to fit everything from the original into one remake instalment, we would have to cut various parts and create a condensed version of Final Fantasy 7. We knew none of you would have wanted that.
"I hope that by explaining a little more about our design decisions that you can appreciate the size of this project and what we have planned for this remake. Going beyond the scale and depth of the world, narrative and gameplay from the original to deliver something that feels familiar yet new. As I said before, we like delivering surprises."
ORIGINAL STORY 7TH DECEMBER: Square Enix's upcoming Final Fantasy 7 Remake will not release in one piece. Instead, it will be episodic.
A stunning new trailer debuting the title's first gameplay was revealed on stage at the PlayStation Experience keynote on Saturday.
However, word of the game's new episodic release was not shared at the event. A follow-up press release from Square Enix revealed the news:
"Final Fantasy 7 Remake will be told across a multi-part series, with each entry providing its own unique experience," the publisher stated.
Square Enix expanded on the decision to make the game episodic in an interview with Dengeki Online, translated by Gematsu.
In it, the publisher said it needed to make the game episodic to avoid anything being cut, and to allow the company time to create entirely new sections.
"The idea that a remake of Final Fantasy 7 would not fit into a single release was there from the very beginning," producer Yoshinori Kitase said. "We still can't share more information about its multiple parts, but please look forward to future announcements."
"If we dedicated our time to a single release, parts of it would become summarised," director Tetsuya Nomura added. "We'd have to cut some parts, and additional parts would come in few, so rather than remake the game as a full volume, we decided to do multiple parts."
"As you can see in the trailer, we showed Sector 1 and Sector 8," Kitase concluded, "but in those areas alone, I think you can see a lot of density. When you're remaking the entirety of the original version in that quality, it's not possible to fit it all in one release."
Final Fantasy 7 Remake was first unveiled during Sony's press conference back at E3 - to rapturous applause (honestly, try sitting next to Aoife when she's yelling). Watch the latest trailer below:
