Final Fantasy VII Rebirth Director Naoki Hamaguchi & Producer Yoshinori Kitase Talks About Addressing Side Quests Fatigue and More 

In anticipation of the launch of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, we had the golden opportunity to head down to Square Enix Headquarters in Shinjuku, Tokyo, to talk with Director Naoki Hamaguchi and Producer Yoshinori Kitase in an interview about the game’s open world, side quests, and more.

Producer Yoshinori Kitase is currently the head of Square Enix’s Creative Business Unit I and the Final Fantasy series Brand Manager, known for directing and producing many games in the franchise.

Meanwhile, Naoki Hamaguchi has been with the series since Final Fantasy XII and is the director of both Final Fantasy VII Rebirth and the previous entry, Final Fantasy VII Remake.

Load Speed, Musical Transition and Zack

While trying out the preview of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, one element that stood out is how seamless the experience is, having little to no load times as you travel across the open world.

Director Hamaguchi explained that while developing Rebirth, the team used the Unreal Engine 4 game engine, but further enhanced with the utilization of the SSD technology’s fast speed to bolster the load speed and graphical fidelity. In that way, the team managed to bring about a seamless experience with almost no wait time in between loading.

Load times are not the only seamless element that greatly enhanced the overworld exploration experience as during battle encounters, music transitions in a rather seamless manner. Director Hamaguchi noted that seamless music transitions were implemented beyond just the transition from exploration to battle.

“As players explore the world map and come closer to certain areas, in which they can engage or interact in some way, the music also transitions at certain points. We built this sort of game experience in which there is a transition of songs that can be experienced in multiple areas. I believe this will be a very interesting and fun feature for players to experience.”

Zack Fair

Crisis Core protagonist Zack Fair is without a shadow of a doubt a popular character and seeing his return in Rebirth has certainly sparked excitement among fans. However, many fans were also worried that Zack may only be a guest character appearing in cutscenes.

At this point, Hamaguchi stated that he cannot reveal many details about Zack Fair yet, but he will be appearing numerous times in Rebirth. “For fans interested in Zack, I believe that Rebirth will be a worthwhile game for them.”

Side Quest Fatigue

One part of any open world game that is worth getting excited for is the side quests, but this particular gameplay system can also oftentimes cause fatigue for players; either due to the missions being perceived to not have much bearing on the story or simply getting overwhelmed.

Square Enix has claimed that they intend to redo the open world concept this time around and Rebirth will be splitting its side quests into two main categories – the World Intel from Chadley and the mercenary quests that players can take on.

In addressing side quest fatigue and the sort of bearing on the main story of Rebirth, Hamaguchi-san said that the side quests are designed in ways that each of them will be unique on its own, to a point where sometimes certain minigames are unique to specific missions and so on. Some side quests in Rebirth will also have their own individual storyline, which can be traced throughout the game.

The side quests in Rebirth will also have puzzle-solving elements where players would have to find their own strategy to solve and complete certain missions. “It is wholly designed in the sense that it keeps players feeling excited as they move to a new location and have a sense of ‘What kind of side quest will I be finding here that I have yet to experience elsewhere’. The side quests in Rebirth are designed in that way and we’re looking forward to players experiencing it,” described Hamaguchi.

Adding on to addressing side quest fatigue, Hamaguchi mentioned that there will be some players may feel that the sheer volume of content in a vast open world means they might not see the end of the game, thus creating a stressful feeling.

“While there is not quite one answer on how to address this, my approach to this is to make it quite clear about the volume that players will experience in playing the side stories and quests and to have this distinction between main storyline and side content. Being able to be transparent about the content volume and giving awareness to players going through the game, I believe will help alleviate the stress of not knowing how much is there left to play in terms of side content.”

World Intel Quests 

As mentioned, every side quest will be unique in its own way and the World Intel quests in Rebirth will even incorporate different mechanics. For instance, in a quest involving Titan, players can have to memorize the keys at the right timing and match them while scanning the crystal. When asked about the execution of these different features, Hamaguchi-san said that he considered a lot about player experience and wants each location to have a different playfield for players to experience.

“Since there is a large amount of content available in this game, there will be players with widely varying gameplay preferences. Some may decide to play all the content, while others may pick and choose. Taking into account that each player will have their own desired style and preferences in terms of how they want to play their game. This was something we wanted to emphasize within Rebirth, to make the gameplay experience more fulfilling.”

“In terms of designing both World Intel and Mercenary Quests in Rebirth. The World Intel is more of a straightforward quest where players would fulfill requests by heading to specific locations after receiving communication with Chadley. Whereas the Mercenary Quest may be more complex and involved as players may have to go to multiple different locations and talk to many different NPCs in order to fulfill. We are wary of creating this distinction in terms of design between these two types of quests.”

Bandit and Comedy

During the Final Fantasy VII Rebirth preview, one of the side quests we encountered was about the bandit gang Beck’s Badasses, which leans more toward funny than serious. Commenting on the bandits, Hamaguchi-san highlighted that comical elements are quite unique to Final Fantasy VII because of its worldview. After all, you can’t quite have Cloud traveling around on a segway in the Middle Ages. 

He also mentioned that aside from Beck’s Badasses, there were a slew of other funny characters as well. Some of them originated from Final Fantasy VII spin-off titles, while some were familiar characters. 

Level vs. Progressions

Considering the huge amount of content there is in the open world, there is a risk of players becoming over-leveled or too overpowered for the main quests. When asked about whether over-leveling hinders progression or any recommendation on where players should prioritize to progress their game.

Hamaguchi-san noted that even if players do not engage in any side quests in Rebirth, the main story is designed in a way that can still be completed, although it may be a little bit more challenging.

In terms of how players may go about playing, he said that some may just engage with a little bit of side content, while others may play it all. So, to account for the variances and the varying degrees of how much side content a player may choose to engage and to retain the balance, he mentioned that there are two ways that the team structured the game.

The first way is to ensure that some items are designed in a way that as players’ character level goes up, it becomes harder to gain more EXP. “It is a balancing method in that sense so that you’re not going to experience a sudden huge surge in being able to level up because the EXP that you’re gaining is going to be adjusted according to enemy levels and your own level. We have kind of maintained a balance in that way.”

Meanwhile, the second way is that there is much more side content present in the game that surpasses the main content. “We do envision that there won’t be too many players that will be playing all of the side content and completely disregarding the main story. It’ll be more so that they’ll progress the main story to some point and then perhaps play some of the side content.”

“Of course, as you keep progressing the main story, the characters in the party will level up and grow in strength. We did think about if players were to go back to side content that’s more towards the beginning, it would be quite boring or less of a challenge for that experience since they’ve already leveled up by progressing the main story. In order to combat that, we incorporated Advanced Mode to make sure enemy levels and player levels were on par with each other. That way, you can still have a fulfilling battle experience, even when you go back to playing the side content after playing the main story.”

Gold Saucer 

It has been more than 20 years since we last saw a scene performance from a character in Final Fantasy. When the trailer from The Game Awards 2023 dropped and the scene of the Gold Saucer performance was revealed, fans were extremely ecstatic about it.

To that, Producer Kitase commented, “When looking at Final Fantasy as a series, with Final Fantasy VI for example, that was another title in which the opera scene was very memorable and highly positively received by players. In that way, we have this long history of stage-based action or something unfolding on a stage happening throughout different Final Fantasy titles, as you’ve mentioned. And of course, in the original as well, there were various minigames that took place at the Gold Saucer.”

“We did design this as sort of a place of entertainment and amusement, so this is where another stage event that’s Final Fantasy-like unfolds as well. Without going into too many details that are linked to the characters’ fate, in terms of story, it’s in a way synchronized with their fates, which is also another large theme of Rebirth and that was very much taken into account when designing the scene.”

“Another point regarding the stage scene is that, for the previous title, Final Fantasy VII Remake, the theme song ‘Hollow’, we were only able to play it during the ending credits. However, we did feel deeply for the theme songs as they were with Final Fantasy VIII or Final Fantasy X, it’s something that can be played during the course of the game and it really deepens and makes the scene and story reach by including it within the game.”

“So for Rebirth, the theme song will be used in the Golden Saucer stage scene and I believe that we were able to construct this three-way synchronization between Rebirth’s theme song, the drama unfolding on the stage and the storyline that is being told within Rebirth. Those three components are all working together and unfolding on stage, and is something I hope players would take a good look at.”

“As a little side note, the melody of the previous Final Fantasy VII Remake theme song ‘Hollow’, a slight melody of it is used somewhere in Rebirth, so that is a little easter egg for fans to find.”

Hamaguchi-san chimed in and said that the Golden Saucer performance where Aerith is singing on stage was added mid-development and was something Producer Kitase was adamant about.

Queen’s Blood 

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth has many minigames for players to indulge countless hours in such as Chocobo Riding, Piano Performance, Moogle Mischief, and much more. However, one minigame that stands out among the rest is a card game in the form of Queen’s Blood.

Regarding the inspiration behind Queen’s Blood, Hamaguchi-san noted that it was incorporated into the game very early in development as it was their intention to put in a wide variety of minigames.

“When we think about minigames, there are some that are one-off, while others you may play throughout the game. When we thought about something that could be played throughout, the card game was something that we believe players desired to play throughout. Even I, playing as a user, had similar thoughts and desire to say ‘Oh, you know, if we were ever develop a remake version of Final Fantasy VII, I would love to see a card game included.'”

Hamaguchi-san also mentioned that they gathered up some board game fans and brainstormed about the rules of Queen’s Blood.

In terms of influence from other games such as the Gwent card game from The Witcher 3, Hamaguchi-san said that it was never in their thoughts to copy the aforementioned card game. That said, they did look into it as one of the references for Queen’s Blood while considering elements that would fit into the world of Final Fantasy.

It was also mentioned that the team thinks that implementing a rule from a card game that is already pretty in another numbering title would make it familiar to players. “Taking games like Final Fantasy VIII into account, or when having two cards sort of next to each other will result in a combined effect, or with IX putting certain cards together will create a new effect, and so on. These were discussed and I thought that these would be the things that help players gain more familiarity with the card game.”

“As mentioned earlier, we were really deep into discussions with certain members of the development team that were really into board games and card games. I remember discussing what would be a good rule to implement for maybe the whole first year of development.”

In addition to the card game, there will also be a side story that is centered around Queen’s Blood, and it even connects to the main story.

Message to Fans in Southeast Asia

The original Final Fantasy VI is a game that resonated with a lot of fans in Southeast Asia and the Remake further enhanced the series’ reach to more audiences. For this, Director Naoki Hamaguchi expresses, “The game itself is already completed and will be available on February 29th, including the vast Wolrd Map that has evolved as well as the game experiences. There are tones of new features included, so please look forward to this game.”

Producer Yoshinori Kitase also has much to say. “So for this title, whether it’s the storyline or the game contents, both of them are very voluminous in their nature. And there’s just this wide degree of freedom that’s offered within Rebirth. And, of course, hearing your sort of questions as well, I once again understand that Queen’s Blood is of large interest to the players. Which is wonderful. I see that a lot of global as well as Asian regions in particular are very much interested in these board game or card game experiences within the game. So with that as well I believe this is a game that allows all types of players to play the game in whatever way they wish to. So I hope that will be experienced in their own hands.”

We would like to thank Square Enix for setting up this interview for us. We would also love to thank Yoshinori Kitase and Naoki Hamaguchi for taking the time to answer our questions.

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is slated to release on February 29, 2024, for the PlayStation 5.

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