If you click on a link and make a purchase we may receive a small commission. Read our editorial policy.

The surprising simple design philosophy of Final Fantasy VII Remake, according to director Naoki Hamaguchi

Square Enix sees Final Fantasy VII Remake and Rebirth as a reunion both for their characters and fans returning to the series.

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth Cast — Image credit: Square Enix

Features by Trent Cannon, Senior Contributing writer

Published on Fri Nov 07 2025

Popverse's top stories

Netflix's Stranger Things: Tales from '85 announcement sure seems to be teasing the return of a dead (?) season 2 character
Here's how to watch all the New York Comic Con 2025 panels
Watch Capcom tell NYCC 2025 how they've kept up the fight for over 45 years

Long before we all got to play through Final Fantasy VII again with both Remake and Rebirth (and the eventual third chaptering coming our way), developers at Square Enix had to sit down together and figure out what they wanted to do with the Final Fantasy VII Remake project. According to series director Naoki Hamaguchi, there has always been one guiding principle to these games from the very beginning and it is surprisingly simple: "reunion."

Hamaguchi dropped that insight into the design philosophy behind Final Fantasy VII Rebirth at the MCM London 2025 Final Fantasy VII Rebirth panel.

“So there was actually a very big theme that we set down when we first started development on Final Fantasy VII Remake for the first game, and the theme we followed, everything on the whole game followed this, was the idea of a reunion.”

Now, before you think that sounds like a remarkably simple idea, there were layers to how Hamaguchi and the rest of the development team interpreted that theme.

“So there’s two parts to that, and you can interpret it in two different ways. The first of those is the idea that this is returning to Final Fantasy VII after more than 20 years. So, this is the fans coming back to meet their favorite characters, Cloud, Aerith, and all the others again after such a long time away. The other side of that is obviously how the characters relate to each other in the game itself. This is Cloud, Aerith, and Tifa kind of coming back together again within the story as well. So how we showed their feelings and how that affected them was a big part of the direction for the development of the game.”

This idea of reunion is something Square Enix and Hamaguchi himself focused on throughout the (ongoing) development of the series.

“So, I think if that’s gotten across to the fans here, then I’ve done my job and I’m very happy to see we’ve achieved what we want to do. That was something we took a lot of care and paid a lot of attention to in the development is creating these situations, these scenarios where the characters come back together, how that’s presented.”

The gaming industry has come a long way since Pong blew all our minds in the 70s. We've got everything you need to know about the next big thing in games. Of course, Grand Theft Auto VI is going to be the big game of 2026, but there are plenty of other games coming out between now and then. Here is our starter guide for every gamer: