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Square Enix had two big surprises for Final Fantasy fans at this past weekend's PlayStation Experience: a new trailer featuring Final Fantasy 7 Remake's gameplay and news that the game was being split into a "multi-part series." Today, producer Yoshinori Kitase further explained why the new version of Final Fantasy 7 is being delivered in pieces.
"With Final Fantasy 7 Remake, we have the opportunity to go beyond the story, world and experience of Final Fantasy 7, in ways we've always dreamed of — from the depths of Midgar to the skies above the Planet," Kitase said on the official Square Enix blog. "The multi-part format enables us to expand the original story and turn it into an epic experience for fans and new gamers alike."
Square Enix has often said that remaking Final Fantasy 7 would be an elaborate and expensive endeavor. Kitase re-emphasized that in his post, noting that it's not just the game they're remaking, but also the "feeling of density of the original" PlayStation game.
"One thing that we wanted to be clear about during this weekend to accompany the new trailer was the scale of this project," Kitase said. "We wanted to tell you this now and not in the future so that you'd share our vision for what we want to deliver. The biggest reason why we haven't done a remake until now is because it's a massive undertaking to reconstruct Final Fantasy 7 from the ground up with the current technology. Producing a proper HD remake of Final Fantasy 7 that maintains the same feeling of density of the original would result in a volume of content that couldn't possibly fit into one instalment."
Kitase echoed similar statements from character designer Tetsuya Nomura to Famitsu published earlier this week in his post, saying that the expanded scope means expanding the release structure of the remake.
"We've seen everyone's comments and reactions to the news that Final Fantasy 7 Remake will be a multi-part series and many have speculated correctly as to the reason why we have made this decision," he said. "If we were to try to fit everything from the original into one remake instalment, we would have to cut various parts and create a condensed version of Final Fantasy 7. We knew none of you would have wanted that."
