Final Fantasy VII Revelation is still months away, but a prominent voice in the Final Fantasy universe is already teasing what’s next for publisher Square Enix after the game releases next year.
I spoke exclusively with Yoshinori Kitase, who serves as producer of the Final Fantasy VII Remake trilogy, director of the original Final Fantasy VII (along with Final Fantasy VI, VIII, X, and Chrono Trigger), and brand manager of the Final Fantasy franchise at Square Enix, at the Lucca Comics & Games Festival 2026.
We spoke at length about Kitase’s decades-long involvement in the Final Fantasy franchise, and why he’s ready to turn the page. During the conversation, Kitase shared plans about what’s next for Square Enix, if he’s still interested in film adaptations, and which Final Fantasy game fans inside and outside the company want to remake next.
IGN: I want to of course talk about Final Fantasy, but also Square Enix in general. Square Enix is very famous for both new IP and also remakes. How do you balance that as a company? Are they both equally important to the company at this moment and also moving forward?
Yoshinori Kitase: I think that mainly we are more likely to invest in new titles and new games, but at the same time, for example, this time with the [Final Fantasy VII] remake, there was me and other creators who worked on the original game, which we had really strong feelings towards. And we really wanted to create something new related to the old game to allow new users to play and to know the appeal of this game as much as the old users who play the old game. So there might be different cases like this one where the company is willing to invest in remaking old projects and other kinds of games like it happened this time.
IGN: Speaking of Final Fantasy, you've worked on a lot of Final Fantasy games. Is there one quality that you think that makes Final Fantasy special or popular?
Yoshinori Kitase: I think that the main thing would be the characters who are part of the game and the way they are developed throughout the game. So if I have to take just one thing that makes the game special, I would say [it is] the characters of the game and the way they are developed.
Also, one more thing I think would be the fact that, originally, the aesthetic of the game was really influenced by European culture. And then as the time went by, the game took more and more things from the Japanese culture, because the other creators working on the game and I, we grew up in Japan of course, so we were in contact with comics and anime and Japanese comics. And that started having a main role in the development of the game.
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://www.ign.com/articles/square-enix-new-games-remakes-kitase-interview
