Ben Veress is a Contributing Features Writer at DualShockers based in Melbourne, Australia. He has been covering games professionally since 2021, with experience writing features, lists, reviews, and news across gaming, tech, culture, and entertainment.
Before joining DualShockers, Ben wrote for Kotaku AU, Gizmodo AU, Vice AU, Pedestrian.TV, Quest Daily, Blunt Magazine, Impulse Gamer, and Inkl. At Pedestrian.TV, he served as the publication’s sole tech and gaming writer, leading coverage of major gaming releases and events for one of Australia’s major youth publications. He holds a Bachelor of Communications in Media from RMIT University and was nominated for Best Branded Content Journalist at the Australian Samsung IT Awards in 2025.
Final Fantasy 7 Revelation has been on a busy media tour these last few weeks, showcasing multiple unique demos at conventions ahead of its April 8, 2027 release date. Given that it's the final part of the trilogy, and Square Enix has repeatedly announced that the game is a standalone title, it's opened up the question of whether gamers can dive into Revelation without playing previous games.
In an interview with Genki JPN at Gamescom in August, Hamaguchi shared, "Final Fantasy VII Revelation has been designed as a standalone experience, so players can jump in and enjoy it even if it’s their first entry in the trilogy." He would then follow up by admitting that, because this game is the conclusion to a trilogy, he hopes that players "experience Remake and Rebirth before starting Revelation."
Unfortunately, reactions to the first half of Hamaguchi's initial statement caught on, leading some on social media to question how Revelation could be considered a starting point this late into the series. It's a record the director is still trying to correct to this day.
In an interview with DualShockers at Tokyo Game Show this week, Hamaguchi repeated that he strongly recommends the audience plays through the previous remakes first, and was keen to correct the confusion.
Speaking via translator, he'd compromise on the argument that "It'd be good to play the other games," knowing not every player diving into Revelation will have played the previous games. Still, he's aware that his earlier comment suggested that some players wouldn't need to play Remake and Rebirth despite the major changes to the original Final Fantasy 7's story.
He'd go on to speculate that the misconception was a simple issue of grammar. "In terms of English, there's usually an answer at the beginning, and a follow-up at the end... But things are sort of flipped in the two languages," he'd explain. "So when people read the tweets, it's like, 'Oh, you can totally play Revelation all by itself.' Well, you need to read the rest of the sentence, because I'm not actually saying that," he clarified.
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://www.dualshockers.com/final-fantasy-7-revelation-director-naoki-hamaguchi-wants-you-to-play-previous-games/
