After six years and three games rebuilding one of gaming's most revered stories, Naoki Hamaguchi stands at the edge of a completed chapter and chooses not to repeat it. The director who reimagined Final Fantasy 7 for a new generation has declined the mantle of remake custodian, turning instead toward the harder, lonelier work of invention. It is a reminder that mastery, when fully expressed, often points its bearer somewhere new.
FF7 Revelation Director Eyes New Challenge Beyond Remakes
If it's not Final Fantasy, that's also exciting
Mark
So Hamaguchi has spent twenty years at Square Enix and six of those years on the FF7 remake trilogy. That's a significant chunk of a career. Why would he walk away from remakes when he's clearly proven he can do them at the highest level?
Mimi
Because he's finished the job. The trilogy is complete in spring 2027. He's taken a linear game, expanded it into three games, and the final one is fully open world. That's an arc. Once you've done that, the creative problem is solved. What's left is repetition—and he's explicitly saying he doesn't want to repeat himself.
Luke
But we should be careful here. He said he doesn't want to direct another remake. That's his personal choice. It doesn't mean Square Enix won't make more remakes—it just means someone else will direct them. The article notes that Final Fantasy 6 is the obvious next candidate, and fans keep asking for it. That project will probably happen eventually.
Mark
He mentioned wanting to work on a "grand-scale RPG," but that phrase is pretty elastic. Could mean anything. Do we know what he's actually thinking about?
Mimi
No. The article makes that clear—it's genuinely unclear what he means. He left it open: could be a new Final Fantasy game, could be a different Square Enix IP entirely. The point is he wants to build something new rather than rebuild something old.
Luke
And that's worth noting as a distinction. Building new is harder than remaking, in some ways. You don't have a blueprint. You have to justify every design choice from scratch. He's choosing the harder path, which is interesting.
Mark
Does the article tell us anything about what Square Enix's plans are after Revelation ships?
Luke
Not really. It notes that Final Fantasy 16 came out three years ago and the next mainline game is probably years away. No remake announcements. So there's a vacuum. Hamaguchi's stepping out of it, but the vacuum remains.
Mimi
Which is actually the real story here. It's not just about one director's next move. It's about what Square Enix does with its own legacy. Do they keep remaking the classics, or do they invest in new ideas? Hamaguchi's answer is clear: he's betting on new ideas.
Mark
And if other creators at Square Enix don't step up to remake FF6 or whatever comes next, then what? Does the remake pipeline just stop?
Luke
The article doesn't address that. It's speculation at that point. All we know is what Hamaguchi said: he thinks someone else should do it, and he's moving on.
Der Puls
- Hamaguchi has spent nearly a decade inside someone else's story — and with Revelation's 2027 release, he is finally ready to tell his own.
- Fan pressure to remake Final Fantasy 6 is real and vocal, but Hamaguchi has firmly redirected that energy toward other creators at Square Enix.
- His ambition is pointed at a 'grand-scale RPG' — a deliberately open phrase that could mean a new Final Fantasy or an entirely different franchise altogether.
- Square Enix now faces a quiet vacuum: no mainline Final Fantasy on the horizon, no classic remakes announced, and its most celebrated director stepping away from revival work.
- The trilogy's own design arc — from linear to zone-based to fully open world — suggests Hamaguchi has been building toward something, and whatever comes next may look nothing like what preceded it.
After six years and three games rebuilding one of gaming's most revered stories, Naoki Hamaguchi stands at the edge of a completed chapter and chooses not to repeat it. The director who reimagined Final Fantasy 7 for a new generation has declined the mantle of remake custodian, turning instead toward the harder, lonelier work of invention. It is a reminder that mastery, when fully expressed, often points its bearer somewhere new.
Naoki Hamaguchi has spent twenty years at Square Enix, and the last six have been defined by a single, consuming project: rebuilding Final Fantasy 7 across three separate games. He co-directed the 2020 remake, took full control for Rebirth, and now leads the trilogy to its conclusion with Final Fantasy 7 Revelation, arriving in spring 2027. The final chapter marks the series' most dramatic design leap — a fully open world, completing an arc that moved from linear corridors to zone-based exploration across a generation of hardware.
When Game Informer recently sat down with him, Hamaguchi made one thing plain: he has no interest in directing another remake. Fans have long hoped he might turn his attention to Final Fantasy 6, but he deflected those hopes with quiet finality, suggesting the project would be better served by a different creator inside Square Enix. The door, for him, is closed.
What he wants instead is something he called a 'grand-scale RPG' — a phrase he left deliberately vague. It could be a new Final Fantasy entry or an entirely different Square Enix property. The franchise label matters less to him than the freedom: he wants to build something that doesn't carry the gravity of reinterpreting a beloved original. 'If it's not Final Fantasy, that's also exciting,' he said, framing the unknown itself as the draw.
His exit from the remake space leaves Square Enix with open questions. Final Fantasy 16 is three years old, no new mainline entry has been announced, and no classic titles are queued for revival. Whoever eventually stewards the next beloved game back to life will have to do it without Hamaguchi — who will be somewhere else entirely, building something that hasn't existed before.
Naoki Hamaguchi has spent two decades at Square Enix, and the past six years of his career have been consumed by one of the industry's most ambitious undertakings: breaking Final Fantasy 7 into three separate games and rebuilding each one from the ground up. He started as co-director on the 2020 original remake alongside Tetsuya Nomura, then took the helm for Rebirth, and now stands at the finish line with Final Fantasy 7 Revelation, the trilogy's conclusion arriving in spring 2027. The weight of that work—the scope, the expectation, the sheer technical and creative machinery required to reimagine one of gaming's most sacred texts—has defined his professional life for years. And he is ready to move on.
When Summer Game Fest unveiled Revelation last summer as the show's closing moment, Hamaguchi and voice actor Matt Mercer walked the audience through two hours of gameplay, showing fans what the final chapter would deliver. The game represents the trilogy's most ambitious design shift: where the first entry was largely linear and Rebirth opened up with zone-based exploration, Revelation is going fully open world. It is the logical endpoint of a creative arc that has stretched across a generation of hardware and player expectations.
But Hamaguchi has already begun thinking beyond it. In a recent conversation with Game Informer, he made clear that he has no interest in directing another remake, even as fans continue to petition him to take on Final Fantasy 6—a game that has long sat in the community's wishlist for the FF7 treatment. His response was measured and deliberate: he acknowledged the requests, but suggested that such a project would be better served by another director within Square Enix's ranks. "I think that it might be in better hands if it went to another creator," he said, effectively closing the door on his own involvement in any future classic game revival.
What draws him instead is the prospect of building something entirely new. He spoke of wanting to develop what he called a "grand-scale RPG"—a phrase deliberately vague, which leaves open whether he means another Final Fantasy game or an entirely different Square Enix intellectual property. The specifics matter less than the principle: he wants a fresh creative challenge, something that doesn't carry the weight of reinterpreting an existing work. "If it's not Final Fantasy, that's also exciting, because that could be a challenge for me," he said, suggesting that the appeal lies not in the franchise name but in the freedom to invent.
The question of what exactly he means by "grand-scale" remains open. Will it be another open world, building on the design philosophy that Revelation represents? Or will he return to something more linear, more focused, more architecturally different from what he's just completed? The source material doesn't say, and Hamaguchi hasn't elaborated. What is clear is that the remake trilogy has run its course for him—not because it failed, but because it succeeded, and success has a way of exhausting even the most ambitious creators.
For Square Enix, Hamaguchi's departure from the remake business opens a question mark. Final Fantasy 16 arrived three years ago, and the company has given no indication of when the next mainline entry will arrive. No other classic games have been announced for the remake treatment. If and when Square decides to revive another beloved title from its vault, it will need to find a new steward. Hamaguchi will be elsewhere, deep into whatever comes next—a project that, by his own measure, will demand something he hasn't yet given.
Bemerkenswerte Zitate
I think that it might be in better hands if it went to another creator in Square Enix.— Naoki Hamaguchi, on the prospect of remaking Final Fantasy 6
If it's not Final Fantasy, that's also exciting, because that could be a challenge for me.— Naoki Hamaguchi, on his next project after Revelation
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