Remake Interviews: Catch-all Thread

[KiwiPizza]

I expect it late 2020/early 2021 at the earliest.

No way is it this year. I'd bet on it. I'll dye my hair blue if it's this year. =P

Any reason why? Just curious

 

[Tetsujin]

Any reason why? Just curious

I'm basically looking at KH3 for reference. 5.5 years from announcement to release.
Also, we haven't seen anything in almost three and a half years. Them suddenly re-emerging and giving a release date less than six months away? I see Capcom doing that, but not Square Enix.
I think if it was this year we would have known last year.

 

[Gary Caelum]

Reason for that could simply be that they didn't think FF7 needed the longer build-up, so they kept it quiet because they didn't want to eat into the KH3 marketing campaign. It would've probably overshadowed KH3 in quite an unhelpful way.

 

[Ite]

Or they’re learning. Nomura went on record saying he announced too soon. He may be actually learning!

 

[Alex Strife]

Even I think it's unwise to announce something this big just a few months before release (maybe I've become one of them). Maybe 9 or 12 months is better...

... unless they went nuts with constant promotion from whenever it is announced until release date. In which case, by all means!!

 

[Kain424]

I'm standing by my belief they will be announcing something around or right after the release of the Switch port. That should fit in fine with a holiday release.

 

[Gary Caelum]

Even I think it's unwise to announce something this big just a few months before release (maybe I've become one of them). Maybe 9 or 12 months is better...

The rumor was that there'd be an event in April. The investors briefing also said 'more info leading up to E3'.
Big announcement in April and launch in November/December seems fairly reasonable. That's plenty of time for building hype.

 

[Ite]

Fallout 4 was announced six months before release and went gold from pre-sales. I would say that an FF7 remake would generate even more fanatical hype.

 

[Claymore]

There are certain games which don't require a massive marketing drive. The Remake will be one of those games.

 

[Gary Caelum]

Yeah you have to take into account that people don't need the entire concept showed to them. They just need to see how it's been upgraded from the original. A few trailers could do that.

 

[KiwiPizza]

I'm basically looking at KH3 for reference. 5.5 years from announcement to release.
Also, we haven't seen anything in almost three and a half years. Them suddenly re-emerging and giving a release date less than six months away? I see Capcom doing that, but not Square Enix.
I think if it was this year we would have known last year.

KH3 did lose a year of development due to changing engine, so it really could’ve come out early 2018 which would be 4.5 years from announcing the game to release.

That would put this game at the end of 2019/early 2020 for 4.5 years after announcement.

Does anyone know how far into KH3 they were when it was announced? They’ve stated that FF7 went into “pre-production around the time the PS4 PC port was announced” which was December 2014. So FF7 was announced 6 months into development.

Can we also consider KH3 licensing issues which 7 won’t be bogged down with? This would surely extend development time.

There also this to remember.

Reason for that could simply be that they didn't think FF7 needed the longer build-up, so they kept it quiet because they didn't want to eat into the KH3 marketing campaign. It would've probably overshadowed KH3 in quite an unhelpful way.

Of which they’ve stated how they didn’t want marketing to interfere with KH3 marketing.

When they revealed XV it was 3 years after that and after 4 years of development. That’s a recent FF to come out.

They’ve shown recent intent to announce games closer to release so it may just be a case of “let’s actually just market the game when’s it coming up very soon”

 

[leadmyskeptic]

I would also lean towards the side of a comparatively short period between date/announcement and actual release, largely because of the twin mitigating factors that this game is A. A remake, and B. A fuckin' Final Fantasy VII remake. Think about what's happened in the painfully-long period between the initial announcement and now...sure, there's been anticipation and excitement, but that gap also left the door wide open for a MASSIVE wave of projected criticism, "don't get your hopes up"-isms, "Top 10 Reasons Why Square Will Botch This" lists, 'Let's Speculate on Drama Within the Company and the Ways it's Tearing Itself Apart' articles--the list goes on. Since the audience for this game is so largely built-in, having a relatively short period between announcing the date and it actually being available highly increases the chances of "Finally, it's here, take my money, I don't care" buyer excitement, you could almost say more impulse-driven, without leaving so much room for reflection which turns to doubt which turns to hesitation. It's a strategy employed with certain kinds of film releases fairly often.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

... without leaving so much room for reflection which turns to doubt which turns to hesitation.

 

[Kain424]

Anyone catch this?

 

[Shademp]

Not showing up for me

I would be surprised if this is true. This font for the "UNCOVERED" bit looks like too weird of a choice.

 

[Kain424]

A fair assessment. From what I've heard, it was up for less than thirty minutes. But all this is starting to seem a bit sketch. Also, the tagging seems wrong.

 

[Gary Caelum]

Not showing up for me

I would be surprised if this is true. This font for the "UNCOVERED" bit looks like too weird of a choice.

That's cos it's the one from the FFXV announcement event, back in 2016. I'm pretty sure that's a photoshopped image, not a real twitter timeline.

 

[Tetsujin]

I almost brought this up a few days ago but since only a single twitter seemed to have "caught" it, I thought it likely to be fake and left it at that

 

[Ryuman]

Yeah, looked fake from the moment I first saw it. And everyone is passing around the same screenshot. If this happened you bet there'd hundreds of people who saw it. The background is even pretty similar to last year's E3 conference announcement (Even though I couldn't exactly match it).

 

[Kain424]

I think the wild thing about it is the Final Fantasy VII version looks much better than the Final Fantasy XV one.

*sigh*

Still more waiting.

 

[Gary Caelum]

The font doesn't really match FF7 though, like Shademp said. I know it's a pedantic level of tonal consistency, but developers often ARE that pedantic about such things.

A font having that kind of elegant regal sense to it, fits with a game about a prince with a latin name. It does not fit with a game about a mercenary named after meteorological phenomena, living in a cyberpunk city.

 

[ChipNoir]

There are certain games which don't require a massive marketing drive. The Remake will be one of those games.

While this is true, Square is enterprising. Think of how much side cash Square made with XV pr. I mean, they made deals to show off a goddamned model sports car and a line of fashion clothes.

So they're going to have even more people chomping at the bit to ride along on the VII-R hype train. That stuff takes time to hammer out, whether it's a model of Cloud's bike by Harley Daytona, or Cloud's dress as designed by Balenciaga. : /

 

[Gary Caelum]

Yeah but a large part of the promotional campaign for a Final Fantasy game is usually about showing us the world and characters. They don't have to really do that so much with this.

We only really need to see the battle mechanics, the main characters, and then a quick explanation of how the overworld works (e.g complete openworld or segmented with loading screens) and that will pretty much do. At least for people who've played the original.

 

[ChipNoir]

What we need and what Square wants are two very different things.

 

[Gary Caelum]

Well Square doesn't want to spend that much on marketing. They just think it's generally in their interest to do so.