Squarea 51

[Ite]

To quote TLS user Drax, in response to the Remake announcement:

I'm just amazed they've been working on it this whole time to some degree, keeping it secret and taking the hate from fans.

Wherever this secret game developing base is I hereby dub it Squarea 51.

Here is where we should talk about the 18 years between FF7's release and the announcement. What were they doing? When did they decide?

How deep was this deception? How secret was this secret?

I think the release of G-Bike was a direct result of work on the remake. They added a few things and tossed it out to distract us, but they conceived and designed its engine for the remake.

 

[Flintlock]

I also started wondering about G-Bike when I looked up Cyberconnect 2 for the first front page article, since they developed that as well. I'm sure the PS4 remake won't use the same engine as a mobile game though.

I mentioned on the podcast we recorded last night that it would be interesting to look back through the last ~18 months of rumours to see if any of them were actually legitimate. Of course, just because someone said there was going to be a remake doesn't mean they actually knew anything (I could say "Half-Life 3 is coming out this year" every year and I'd be right eventually), but it's possible.

 

[Lex]

Here, I found that quote from that NeoGAF user I mentioned on the podcast:

Recently industry insider Verendus, that is known to have very strong connections within the Japanese gaming industry, posted on NeoGAF mentioning that the project is happening:

It’s happening. He’s obviously not going to give any indication as such though so it hardly matters until they’re ready to announce something. His comments make sense. It’s a huge project that will take a lot of effort, and demand a lot from him personally, in order to ensure the end result is something satisfactory.

Posted one year, 3 months ago. So that falls within the 18 month development timeline which we currently know.

 

[Keveh Kins]

I imagine they kept all the development files in the same box as all the files from the original FFXIV. Because nobody wants to remember that and thus nobody would ever look there

 

[Tetsujin]

It's not actually been a secret, we have had the odd insider leak that it's finally happening and then right before E3, tons of sites reported it's true and all that - it's just that everyone thought it was bullshit until the very end.

 

[ForceStealer]

Maybe that was a very long con. Disseminate those rumors every year so that even if the REAL secret got out, no one would believe them

I imagine they kept all the development files in the same box as all the files from the original FFXIV. Because nobody wants to remember that and thus nobody would ever look there

Brilliant!

 

[SirVival]

Does this article go too far away?

http://kotaku.com/tetsuya-nomura-is-no-longer-directing-final-fantasy-xv-1635707308

That's something like 21 months ago. I guess Nomura would've had more free time after this, but am I just reaching to conclusions? They do say:

"This move allows Tetsuya Nomura to focus his full efforts as the director of other highly anticipated titles, including Kingdom Hearts III," Square Enix said in an official statement.

Looking at this sentence from the newly found perspective, this could really be the case. Maybe the remake has been planned for almost two years, eventhough the development time differs.

something related: http://thelifestream.net/lifestream...706/final-fantasy-vii-remake-is-it-happening/

 

[Flintlock]

If it's been in development for 18 months, it's certainly not impossible that the decision to remake it (and to start assigning staff to it) was made 21 months ago. Good spot.

 

[Blade]

To give you guys a ballpark comparison...

It takes about 4 months to create 3D models/animations for ONE Guilty Gear character in GGXrd, though it is getting "faster" as they make more.

Compare that to how long it takes to make a Final Fantasy character for a game like this?

 

[Cthulhu]

To give you guys a ballpark comparison...

It takes about 4 months to create 3D models/animations for ONE Guilty Gear character in GGXrd, though it is getting "faster" as they make more.

Compare that to how long it takes to make a Final Fantasy character for a game like this?

But off course they can parallelise the actual creation of the models, i.e. assign several people to the modeling team so they do several characters at once. Making a video game is basically grunt work once the game and visual designs are set.

 

[Lex]

It's not actually been a secret, we have had the odd insider leak that it's finally happening and then right before E3, tons of sites reported it's true and all that - it's just that everyone thought it was bullshit until the very end.

I was kind of in denial about this until I read this post yesterday. Carlie even said this on stream when the announcement happened, but it's only just now penetrating my brain.

There really have been proper leaks about it all over the place for the past two years, we've all just been so jaded by the constant remake rumour crap that we've completely ignored it.

Well, maybe not everyone, but I certainly didn't believe it one tiny bit until about halfway through that trailer. I mean I got my hopes up at Playstation Experience but that caused the "will they?" gate to absolutely finally close, to the point that when Tel made that rumour thread prior to E3 I completely ignored it. I didn't even go in. I bitterly thought "I should go in and make a moany post about how we have too many of these fucking threads already, and just merge it with the last one, that'll show them, sigh".

Then the trailer happened. It's like some sort of cynical haze has been lifted. I can see colours again XD

EDIT: Incidentally, the thread about this on NeoGAF which is linked to in said thread is a hoot to skim through. The reveal doesn't happen until page 100 (and it was closed on page 104) but there's one particular post which was pretty golden that I remember - someone had asked why the thread was so long and another responded:

There are people - here, on NeoGAF - who actually believe that The Last Guardian, Shenmue 3 and a Final Fantasy VII remake are going to show up during Sony's conference

A lot of people replied to it with the usual "they need their brains checked" and stuff, then it was quoted a few times again after all 3 were actually announced XD. It's kind of unbelievable really.

 

[Dragonslayer Ornstein]

To give you guys a ballpark comparison...

It takes about 4 months to create 3D models/animations for ONE Guilty Gear character in GGXrd, though it is getting "faster" as they make more.

Compare that to how long it takes to make a Final Fantasy character for a game like this?

Vastly different scope, method and budget. Guilty Gear's style probably involves a ton of tinkering so it looks like a 2d game and Arc is immeasurably smaller than SE.

 

[Sublime]

I'm not familiar with current production timescales but I take it there's no chance of it being finished in time for the 20th anniversary? i.e January 2017...

Baring in mind it is theoretically possible that they've already made some headway with it.

 

[SirVival]

I'm not familiar with current production timescales but I take it there's no chance of it being finished in time for the 20th anniversary? i.e January 2017...

Baring in mind it is theoretically possible that they've already made some headway with it.

This is my fear exactly, especially because of the constant "It'd take 10 years to remake the game" garbage. But one can hope..

 

[Blade]

Vastly different scope, method and budget. Guilty Gear's style probably involves a ton of tinkering so it looks like a 2d game and Arc is immeasurably smaller than SE.

My whole point of comparing the two is that each has its own time table. How long do you think it took to make this trailer?

Scope has nothing to do with productivity.

Games with huge budgets don't necessarily take longer to make than games with small ones. It's what they do with that budget and the tools at their disposal that counts.

 

[Super Mario]

I feel they're making this remake to close the Compilation, or I think that they're recovering from the compilation's mixed reception? IDK, whatever they're doing, they're doing it right this time since SE fixed itself.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

I'm not familiar with current production timescales but I take it there's no chance of it being finished in time for the 20th anniversary? i.e January 2017...

Baring in mind it is theoretically possible that they've already made some headway with it.

Even if it comes out in the fourth quarter of 2017, though, it would still be within the 20th (calendar) year since the original came out.

 

[Kashkabald]

January 2017 is extremely unlikely. I'd say December 2017 probably, and I wouldn't be surprised if it got pushed back to 2018.