Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth director anticipated a mixed reaction to its controversial ending, but wanted to avoid fan service
Plus he was "blown away" by PS5 Pro performance.
This story discusses the ending of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth.
Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth director Naoki Hamaguchi has said he deliberately intended for the game's ending - the fate of Aerith - to cause debate and keep players guessing until the trilogy's forthcoming conclusion.
Speaking to Eurogamer, Hamaguchi discussed fan reaction to the game's divisive ending and how he wanted to avoid fan service with its development.
"There was a danger there, there was definitely a trap," he said with regards to Aerith's fate. "With the original game, I was just a fan. I played the game when I was younger, and I've got my perspective on that scene as just a single fan. I felt if I made a decision - it has to go in this direction, we have to do it this way - that would very much make it a fan-driven thing. Maybe make it more like fan service. I kind of want to avoid doing that."
As a result, Hamaguchi took a backseat to the original creators - Tetsuya Nomura, Yoshinori Kitase, Kazushige Nojima - and instead shifted his focus to the presentation of their vision.
"Mr Kitase often says this," Hamaguchi continued, "that he really wanted to create that kind of debate and speculation after the game and moving through to the third game, that people keep talking about it up until they do see the final conclusion. In that sense I think we probably have achieved exactly what he wanted to do there and I'm very satisfied with that, because people are still talking about it."
Hamaguchi acknowledged a mixed reaction to the game's ending, but admitted "that's kind of the way we wanted it to go" to ensure discussion continued until the third game in the trilogy.
The controversial ending is part of a continuous guessing game for players familiar with the original, though Hamaguchi remained tight-lipped on what will be changed in the third game.
"The important thing is that the player will wonder whether it's going to change or not," he said. "So if it was all exactly as it was in the original storyline, you'd know exactly what was coming: there'd be no anticipation, there'd be no excitement. For people who played the game, they'd know exactly what's coming next. It wouldn't really be a fun experience. It might be nostalgic, but it wouldn't be a fun experience."
Hamaguchi notes the ending of Remake with the characters breaking the barriers of fate, the inclusion of the whispers, and Zack's alternate timeline in Rebirth as key moments to keep players wondering.
"The real purpose of these elements is to indicate to the player, this is where the story might change," he said. "It doesn't mean it will change, this is where it could change. You might see something new, you might see something different. And that really does help people to keep engaged with the story and keep having that wonder and that anticipation about what's coming next."
He continued: "I think that kind of divided opinion is something we were always going to get just because Final Fantasy 7, the original game, was such a popular game, it's such a well known game that if we'd have completely left it as it was, not change anything, people wouldn't like that. And if we changed it completely, there'd be another set of people who wouldn't like that at all. So we really have to try and find a balance, I think, to try and satisfy as many people as possible.
"I really do want to continue with that level of fans looking at us [and asking] so how's it going to change? What's the ultimate conclusion of this story going to be? Is it going to be the same? Is it going to change? And to keep that level of excitement and anticipation up for the third game in the series. I think that's the job that we've set for ourselves."
"Is it going to be the same? Is it going to change? And to keep that level of excitement and anticipation up for the third game in the series. I think that's the job that we've set for ourselves."
I had to ask, then, considering the dominance of Aerith's fate to the narrative of Rebirth, is she or Cloud the real protagonist of Final Fantasy 7?
"The way I see it for both Remake and Rebirth is very much the story told from Cloud's perspective," said Hamaguchi. "He is the character you follow, and you see events from his eyes and perspective really. The game design for Rebirth, we set very early on in development as a core concept, the idea of the bonds between Cloud and his allies. So you definitely see things from the perspective of, how does this other party member relate to Cloud? How are their bonds becoming strengthened as they journey together, as they experience things together? I can very much say, for the first two games - Rebirth and Remake - up until then, it is all from Cloud's perspective."
Lastly, Hamaguchi said he was "blown away" when he saw Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth running on PS5 Pro for the first time. Sony's console was released earlier this month and Rebirth is one of a handful of games to receive a significant visual improvement.
"I think certainly that was one of the problems with using the PS5 base hardware, is that to try and get 60fps output with the same level of graphic fidelity and resolution as you have in the graphics mode was something that was just really, really difficult to achieve," he said.
"But certainly using the PSSR technology within the Pro, that really did allow us to do both at once and achieve both of those goals of the frame rate together with the resolution. I remember when I saw it for the first time, I really was blown away by it."
PlayStation hardware architect Mark Cerny also had a hand in which part of the game was shown at the PS5 Pro reveal. While Hamaguchi and the Square Enix development team wanted to show the grasslands region for its open world elements, Cerny had a different opinion. "He said 'no, we really want to see the Gold Saucer'," laughed Hamaguchi. "He really pushed to show the Gold Saucer. So ultimately that's the one we showed."
Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth leads this year's The Game Award nominations, alongside Astro Bot, with seven nominations - including for Best Game, as well as Best Game Direction, and Best Narrative.
While it's unknown when the third and final part of the trilogy will be released, series producer Kitase stated previously it won't "betray fans of the original".