RUMOR: The Development On FINAL FANTASY VII: REMAKE Was Restarted After The Split With CyberConnect2

Yoshinori Kitase's Final Fantasy VII was released in 1997 on the first PlayStation, and even after two decades it continues to be regarded as one of the greatest JRPGs ever, thanks to its art-style, gameplay, music, and especially moving and smart story. The game's narration may be timeless, but the graphics is ageing fast. To let players experience VII in its full glory, Square Enix has decided to remake the game.

Final Fantasy VII: Remake was announced at E3 2015 as one of the highlights of the expo. At the time, the remake was developed under the direction of Tetsuya Nomura, the original's character designer, battle visual director and screenwriter, by CyberConnect2, the studio behind the Naruto: Ultimate Ninja series. Almost 3 years have passed since this reveal and we're still pretty much in the same place.

One of many reasons why we're still waiting to check out the game on our own is the fact that Square Enix decided to say thank you to CyberConnect 2 last year and confirmed that the publisher will be making the game in-house. It's understandable that the maneuver would cause some scheduling issues and a bigger or smaller delay, but it looks like Square started the works on the game from scratch.

According to ResetEra user Dan Tsukasa, who's apparently a Game Dev/3D artist working in Japan, the development had to be pretty much restarted or at least a lot was scrapped after Square took back the project from CC2. What's even more baffling, the game's director, Tetsuya Nomura "is barely ever there, he's director largely in name alone. He spends the vast majority if his time in Osaka on Kingdom Hearts 3, as that's where he lives, during the week at least." Just for the record, KH3 is finally coming out this year and that game was announced by Square Enix almost five years ago.

Dan has also called CyberConnect2's work "useless" and "remaking it was faster than refactoring it". The main reason why the project was taken from CC2 was the fact that their take on Final Fantasy VII was behind schedule and Square thought that giving the studio two years to make the remake would've been enough. Whatever the reason really was, see you in 2030, Final Fantasy VII Remake!

In Midgar, a city controlled by the mega-conglomerate Shinra Inc., the No. 1 Mako Reactor has been blown up by a rebel group, AVALANCHE. AVALANCHE was secretly formed to wage a rebellion against Shinra Inc., an organisation which is absorbing Mako energy, destroying the natural resources of the planet. Cloud, a former member of Shinra's elite combat force, SOLDIER, was involved with the bombing of the Mako Reactor. Can Cloud and AVALANCHE protect the planet from the huge, formidable enemy, Shinra Inc.?