Final Fantasy 7 remake trilogy will link with Advent Children, confirms producer
"That is going to be part of canon."
Final Fantasy 7's remake trilogy will ultimately link up with Advent Children, making the film part of the remake canon.
Tetsuya Nomura, creative director for Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, previously told The Guardian the games would link up to Advent Children. Now, speaking to Games Radar, producer Yoshinori Kitase confirmed once again the link to Square Enix's sequel film and discussed balancing the original story with new revisions.
"We are finally going to link up with Advent Children, that is going to be part of canon," said Kitase. "The overall storyline, the developments, will not go wildly out in a way that will not add up to Advent Children in the end. I don't think anyone wanted that, that's not what we're looking to create here.
"[But] to make sure it doesn't become stale and people know exactly where it's going, [that it] doesn't just follow the original word for word, we add in extra elements which add that little bit of doubt. Getting the right balance of that is so key. Ultimately, we're not trying to change the Final Fantasy 7 story into something really different. The overall balance wouldn't really allow for that anyway."
Kitase also discussed the role of Rebirth as the second game in the trilogy in comparison to Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back.
"You've got the setup, the setting, the characters, who they are, all explained in the first part," said Kitase. "The real role of a second part of a trilogy is to deepen that, explore it further, go into the relationships between the characters and how they relate to each other a lot more, which is very much what we focused on here."
Rebirth director Naoki Hamaguchi, meanwhile, added his own thoughts on the need for new twists and changes in each game in a trilogy.
"If we don't add in those changes and ramp everything up and make it that bigger and wider experience, then people just think they know what's coming," he said. "I want to avoid that. We want people to keep wondering. That's very much how we have approached the change from Remake through to Rebirth, just making everything bigger, more expansive, deeper."
Some of those changes are to the battle system, with Rebirth introducing new synergy attacks. Perhaps more fundamental is the move to an open world, which adds exploration, minigames, and swimming.
Cait Sith will also be playable in Rebirth and Vincent will join the party. As for Cid, the recent ESRB rating for the game hints at "characters smoking cigars" and some colourful language - who else could it be?
If you haven't seen Advent Children, it was a CGI film released by Square Enix in 2005 on DVD. It served as a follow up to the original game and has since inspired the extravagant battle visuals of the remake trilogy.
It's not loved by all fans, but at least we know where the remake trilogy is heading. The Marvels director Nia DaCosta is also a big fan.