Yoshinori Kitase has been heavily involved with some of Square Enix’s games for as long as we can remember, but over the last two decades, he’s moved into more of a production role for projects. He’s also serving as the producer for the upcoming Final Fantasy 7 Remake.
But while a producer’s role doesn’t usually imply a lot of direct involvement with the actual development of a game (producers are more involved in the management side of things), it looks like Kitase might be getting back into things a little bit with Final Fantasy VII Remake. Recently, several attendants of the Final Fantasy 7 brass concert tweeted out that Kitase has stated that he’s going to be involved in designing some areas of the game. More specifically, if these claims are to be believed, Kitase will be in charge of designing and planning of floors 69 and 70 of the Shinra Building in the game, apparently because he has a fondness for the content in question.
If you’re wondering if that tells us anything about how far along into development Final Fantasy 7 Remake is, it really doesn’t. While the Shinra Building is an area that is encountered fairly early in the game, developers don’t really build areas in order. Either way, Final Fantasy 7 Remake is going to be a ways off yet. It doesn’t yet have a release date, and though Square Enix says development is moving along nicely, they recently admitted that they shouldn’t have announced the game as early as they did.