Hajime Tabata was recently asked if he would direct Final Fantasy VII Remake, and surprisingly enough, his answer was no. Tabata was speaking with GameRevolution about his future projects, and when he was pressed on whether he would take the helm on Final Fantasy VII Remake if such an opportunity arose, he said he wouldn’t do so, since he doesn’t feel he’d be able to meet all the incredibly high expectations.
Tabata said that meeting all the expectations of all the fans would be a nearly impossible task, and he would much rather work on something new and fresh than try and recreate the excellence of Final Fantasy VII as a modern, current-day game. “It’s such a special numbered game that I don’t think I can remake that one,” he said. “There’s so many fans out there, if I were asked to satisfy all those fans, I don’t think that’s something I could do, 100%. If [Square Enix] asked me to make a new Final Fantasy and take it in a new direction, I’d be happy to accept that one, but if they asked me to remake Final Fantasy VII — to release as if it were a modern game, just released today — no, I don’t think that’s something I can do. I think the only people who could do that are Mr. (Yoshinori) Kitase and Mr. (Tetsuya) Nomura.”
He did, however, say that he’d be comfortable with working on something like Final Fantasy VII-2, given his success with Crisis Core as well. “[Crisis Core] wasn’t VII itself,” he said. “It wasn’t the main game. Now, if they asked me to do Final Fantasy VII-2, that might be different.”
Final Fantasy VII Remake does not yet have a release date, but we expect it to be two to three years away at least. Stay tuned to GamingBolt for all the updates on the game.