If they can commit to a FF13 spin-off for over a decade and even "promote" it to being the next numbered entry in the series, they can commit to an extended dev cycle on a remake of their most popular game ever. Especially when they're cutting it up into multiple, presumably full priced episodes.

They announced it too early. Much like ESVI.

It'll come out eventually. Either the one we've seen demos of or a completely different one.

I'm convinced we'll see the first few "parts" released, and then they'll cancel the rest when the sales fall off midway through.

If we're talking about the entire game being released 4-5 years seems incredibly optimistic. I don't have the highest of hopes for the game with how bizarre production sounds but props to Nomura for just being frank about the fact that it was announced too early from a marketing perspective and yet standing by that decision to just be transparent about what they're working on. It would be good if the industry, both devs and fans, could grow to be less reliant on all the secrecy that currently surrounds development. It'll probably come out but it seems a long way off.

The better question is, how many of Square Enix's western studios will be screwed over while they keep FF7 on life support?

I don't think they could get away with not releasing it at this point. It would create too much negative PR to just cancel it now.

But I have no expectations of it coming any time soon, even if they announce a release window. And I don't expect it to satisfy most of the people waiting for it by the time it does come out. But it will come out, in some form, someday.

I don't understand why they felt they needed to redesign the game. Just remake with modern graphics and VO, maybe tighten up the script a bit, and you're set.

If FF15 can make it through production then I have no doubt this can, too.

It will eventually come out, but I would guess it would be a year into the next gen console cycle. I just don't see them trying to rush to make it to the end of this one.

Tighten up the script 'a bit'...

Not "if", but "when."

Between the hype and immediate disappointment of the PC version getting ported to PS4 and the PS3 tech demo from roughly 13 years ago, something had to be said.

They literally can't not release it

@efesell: They could release it without touching the script at all and it wouldn't matter to most people!

I think most people would say that now and then be like oh wait is this what this always was

Absolutely I'd say. Development just won't kick into high gear until Nomura is done with KH3, just like it didn't for KH3 until he was finished with FFXV.

They'll def make the first part of FF7. It will take over a decade for the entire thing though.

It has to come out. It just has to. They dangled it forever, then finally announced it and got their fanbase whipped up into a stupor. To cancel it now would be such a PR disaster, it would almost be like pushing the self destruct button on the company as a whole. If they cancelled it, how could anyone have faith in any of their projects moving forward?

I heard they scrapped it because they didn’t like where it was going and rebuilt it again. I imagine it will come out one day, I mean Starcraft 2 took forever but finally made it out.

@efesell: I think a lot of people don't realize that the original PC port of FFVII published by Eidos edited out most of the Engrish and all there is left to talk about is whether they should have written Barrett like they did.

They announced it too early. Plus Square Enix took over development and are doing it in house (were originally out sourcing it), so it was taken back abit during the shift.

I mean sure cleaning up those mistakes is one thing but the rest of the script is still definitely a script of that era of Japanese games. Stiff and awkward and just those clear moments of 'Ooh that's probably something that's not translated quite right'.

My point was that if you were to take that script and then plug it into a game that in every other way has been made to look extremely modern it's gonna stick out terribly.

It will definitely come out, and people are going to be bummed out when it isn’t what they wanted. There will be the inevitable split of people that love the new 7 more than the old version, and people that wish that that damn tech demo had never happened.

Honestly, I just can’t wait for people to stop demanding for it.

If they are dumping enough money into this game to give it modern graphics, they need to appeal to a much larger base than big fans of the original. If they kept the gameplay of a 20+ year old game, it would be a hard sell to new customers. Compared to other genres, JRPGs have changed a lot less, but there have still been lots of advancements in that time.

The thing with Square is they announce stuff crazy too early, but it usually ends up existing if only because a project has consumed too much cash to not pay out.

I can almost guarantee a contingent of internet fans hating it and launching petitions in disgust because a) it doesnt play like the original or b) its split into episodes.

That said, I went to Distant Worlds at Otakon and they showed some gameplay of Cloud running around the streets of Midgar that I hadn't seen before which looked pretty sweet.

Barring the complete collapse of Square-Enix, I think the FF VII remake will eventually happen. They kept retooling Final Fantasy Versus XIII for something like a decade before it came out, and I’m sure they’ll do the same for this, at whatever cost that entails.

Once Kingdom Hearts 3 is done, they will move their resources to FF7. This is how Square works unfortunately.

Even if they were to drop it I doubt they would actually come out and address it directly.

if we dont hear something by E3 2019 at the latest once kingdom hearts is out, at least part 1 of that thing will be a cross gen game.

Nah it's not coming out anytime soon

I think they have invested too much into it to quit. The real question is whether they are gonna cut their losses early and release a shit game. That's my fear. This isn't really a project where they can use their old strat of scrapping something and reusing the assets on a new project... It'd be way too obvious.