Final Fantasy VII: Revelation director: Retaining core talent helped avoid delays linked to modern AAA development cycles

Following Final Fantasy VII: Revelation’s big reveal in June 2026, Square Enix has locked in a spring 2027 launch window for PC, PS5, Nintendo Switch 2, and Xbox Series X|S, with all versions slated to release on the same day.

The reveal featured a new trailer showcasing the ability to explore regions via the Highwind airship and a deeper emphasis on player-driven story choices. After Final Fantasy VII Remake released in 2020, followed by Rebirth’s release in 2024, Revelation wraps up the episodic remake trilogy in roughly a decade—an impressive turnaround, given that a single blockbuster AAA video game can take almost six or seven years to go from the drawing board to full release.

In an interview with restart.run, Final Fantasy VII Remake: Revelation director Naoki Hamaguchi of Square Enix’s Creative Studio went into detail about how the development team managed to deliver back-to-back polished releases without the kinds of delays that plague many big-budget video game projects and franchises.

He outlined several simple factors, including forward planning for the remake while earlier entries like Final Fantasy XV and Final Fantasy XVI were still in development, paired with deliberate staff continuity. He explained:

“That’s definitely true, and I think we were also trying to answer the fans’ desires to have the next title come to them as soon as possible and really let them enter the game and continue the journey. In terms of development, when we were working toward the end of Remake, we already had an idea of how to develop Rebirth, and then, toward the end of development on Rebirth, we had a rough idea of how to approach Revelation.”

“So in that sense, I think having a kind of constant alignment within the staff, and having the same staff, or most of the staff, work on Revelation from Rebirth to Revelation meant we were able to maintain the same type of flow, and I think that really helped development stay on track within that span of time.”

He compared modern development cycles to his three-entry FFVII Remake project and said, “Games these days tend to take five to seven years. Rebirth was only a few years ago, and we’re already now looking at Revelation coming in spring.”