Director Naoki Hamaguchi says keeping the team together eliminated the months studios usually spend reassembling after each release
FF7 Revelation took 3 years vs the usual 5+ because 95% of the team stayed from Rebirth. Square Enix’s most efficient cycle ever.
Final Fantasy VII Revelation, the conclusion to the remake trilogy, will launch in spring 2027. That is just three years after the second game, Rebirth. By modern AAA standards, where five years or longer is typical, that is fast.
Director Naoki Hamaguchi told Bloomberg the reason is simple: 95% of the development team stayed together from Rebirth. “ The big benefit of the Final Fantasy VII Remake series is that we never had to go through that process, so the transition was extremely quick, ” he said.
The industry norm is to disband teams after each release, then spend months reassembling for the next project. New people need new roles, new trust, new workflows. Hamaguchi avoided all of it by starting Revelation’s design a year before Rebirth shipped, then moving the same team straight into production.
The results show in the numbers. Remake took years of pre-production. Rebirth took four years. Revelation took three. Each game shipped faster than the last with the same people doing the work. Hamaguchi and Final Fantasy XIV director Naoki Yoshida are the only two leaders at Square Enix who maintain persistent teams across projects. Both run the company’s most successful franchises.
“ I think it’s something that we should be mindful of as a company, ” Hamaguchi said. “ Because this did bring out a really huge benefit in terms of speeding up and having an efficient development timeline. ”
The lesson arrives at a brutal moment. Xbox is planning major layoffs in July under new CEO Asha Sharma. Microsoft and Meta have cut tens of thousands of jobs this year while redirecting spending to AI. The gaming industry lost 11% of developers in 2024 according to GDC’s annual survey, with 41% affected directly or through their teams.
Hamaguchi’s interview also revealed design decisions shaped by player feedback. Mini-game rewards in Revelation will be purely cosmetic, not tied to combat strategy as they were in Rebirth. The Highwind airship will let players fly around the entire world with no invisible walls, a feature Hamaguchi pushed through despite engineering objections. A new job system called FITS offers four unique classes per character, each with deep skill-tree progression.
Only four or five people at Square Enix knew the title “ Revelation ” before it was announced. Hundreds of developers learned the name at the same time as the public.
After Revelation ships, Hamaguchi said his next project will not be a remake. He is considering a AA title, a new Final Fantasy, or an original AAA franchise. He would love to keep the team together but acknowledged the tension: holding talent in two persistent teams “ staggers and hinders the growth of the company. ” Tech companies keep cutting teams and wondering why the next thing takes so long. Hamaguchi proved what happens when you don’t.
Technology enthusiast and intern at The Next Web, contributing to research-backed content and investigating new technologies and global even (show all) Technology enthusiast and intern at The Next Web, contributing to research-backed content and investigating new technologies and global events. Interested in business and how the narrative and perception of technology is shaped.