Naoki Hamaguchi has spent more than a decade helping remake one of the most beloved games ever made, and with Final Fantasy 7 Revelation, the end is finally in sight. At this point, he says roughly 90% of the development team has been together across all three games, and they’ve internalized the original Final Fantasy 7 so thoroughly that they barely need to consult the PS1 playthrough they once used as a constant reference.
That familiarity hasn’t made the responsibility any lighter. Hamaguchi admits he “hates the burden” of carrying Final Fantasy 7’s legacy, even as he’s happy to bear it -- and, as someone who grew up loving the original himself, says he may be the fan most eager to finally see the project completed.
We spoke with Hamaguchi at Gamescom 2026 about finishing the trilogy, bringing Revelation to Switch 2, designing for wildly different kinds of players, and why he believes the finale will give fans what they deserve.
Editor’s note: This interview was conducted as part of a group Q&A with Game Rant and two other media outlets. Game Rant's questions are marked below; questions from the other participating journalists are labeled “Press.” The conversation has been lightly edited for clarity and length.
Press: You've said in an earlier interview that you've completed Final Fantasy 7 Revelation at least 40 times. How do you identify which parts of the game you would like to change?
Naoki Hamaguchi: The way I generally approach that is not just to write it down. If you send instructions to the development team based only on text, they sometimes won't understand exactly what needs changing. So when I'm doing tests, I record a video at the same time and send it to the team to show them visually, along with text, to make it clearer.
And the things I pick up on aren't just about playing through it and saying, "Oh, I don't like this part; let's change it." It's not on the spot. It's really based on understanding the plan of the game. It's looking at the core concept and asking, "Have we achieved what that original concept or idea was, or is what we initially discussed coming into the right shape, or how could we push this further?"
The development team for FF7 Revelation has a funny culture. For example, I often use the weekend for test plays, and the rest of the team is usually off. They're not there to react to my comments immediately, so the feedback piles up over the weekend; then the team comes back on Monday, and they're really down because they see this long list of things from me. It's a weird culture.
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://gamerant.com/final-fantasy-7-revelation-interview-director-hamaguchi/
