Kingdom Hearts 3 and Final Fantasy 7 Remake were both announced quite long ago by Square Enix as an incredible one-two punch, and obviously, people were incredibly excited when that happened. Since then, though, the anticipation has continued to get stronger, while the games themselves constantly seem to be far away from release. Kingdom Hearts 3, thankfully, has been confirmed for a January 2019 release, after multiple years of waiting, but Final Fantasy 7 Remake still seems to be no closer to release than it did years ago.
According to Tetsuya Nomura, who’s directing both these games, the process of deciding when to announce big upcoming games is a complicated one, due to a number of factors, but he admits that both games were indeed announced by Square Enix too early. “Deciding when to announce your game to the public is always difficult,” Nomura said in an interview with Italian magazine Multiplayer (translation via KH Insider). “I understand why some companies wait as long as possible, and I definitely think it’s a good thing for them. But in our case, we receive pressure from the fans even when we do not announce anything. They’re always asking us ‘are you working on this?’ or ‘why don’t you make a sequel for that?’. Even after the announcement, the situation does not change, because then they’ll move onto asking us ‘when will it release?’ or ‘when will you show a new trailer?'”
“People are waiting for new information regardless of whether the game has been announced or not,” Nomura continued. “It’s great when we manage to keep it secret for as long as possible, but these days, a lot of important projects become victims of rumors and leaks. Honestly, I prefer that we officially reveal our games instead of seeing a leak or a rumor circulating online. Especially when part of the development is outsourced to other companies, there is always the risk that people outside the in-house team will spread information and images online. It is even worse when, during the development, a fake rumor sprouts that people start to believe, and it becomes necessary to decide whether to answer and deny.”
He then went on to speak about Final Fantasy 7 Remake, admitting that the same happened with the announcement of that game as well. “The same thing happened with the remake of Final Fantasy 7. I am well aware of the fact that we announced it too early, but even in the industry, word was beginning to spread that we were working on the game, so we just decided not to keep it more secret and officially reveal it.”
Kingdom Hearts 3 is definitely (we hope) launching on January 25 for the PS4 and Xbox One, as Square confirmed during E3, while Final Fantasy 7 Remake now seems to have moved into the production stage of development– though when it will be out is something neither of us really knows yet. However, Square Enix have said that the development on the game is moving along better than expected. Stay tuned to GamingBolt for more updates on both these games.
