FF7 Revelation is bigger than open world – "it's a whole planet," says director Naoki Hamaguchi

Open world isn't quite good enough for Final Fantasy 7 Revelation director Naoki Hamaguchi; he's going for open planet.

As well as previewing a short demo of the game at Gamescom, I had the chance to sit down for a chat with Hamaguchi-san, where among other things, we discussed bringing the world of FF7 to its intended scale.

In the original game, you could get from one end of the world to another in a matter of seconds once you have the Highwind. Revelation seeks to change that.

"I think one thing I'm really proud of – and I think we've achieved something quite unique here with the way the game's structured – is that I think almost no one else has ever done an open world gaming experience that feels like it's a whole planet," Hamaguchi began. "We have done that."

He went on to say that he aimed to improve upon the traditional idea of what an open world game can be.

"There's lots of really great, really famous open world games out there. I think most of them, though, take place in a certain region or area, a restricted area, and it's not as if it's a whole world if it's one part of a bigger location."

But of course, achieving that scale of an entire planet means more time to travel across it, requiring the team to strike a balance between scale and fun.

"I think getting that balance is such a fine line you've got to walk. If we made it at a real planetary scale, then getting anywhere would take way too long, and you'd be flying in the airship for hours. 'Are we there yet? No, it's still several hours before we get to the region.'

"It would feel stressful. It would feel like work. It'd be too hard. So, we can't make it an actual real scale, but we still have to make it feel like you are in that massive environment, and you are travelling around a whole world, so there has to be that certain level of it taking time to get to your destination.

"You kind of have to get it at that sweet spot where you're starting to go, 'Yeah, I'm travelling a long way here, this feels like a long trek,' but then you get there and it's not that much stress and you can get on with the game.

"Finding that balance is a really difficult thing, but it was absolutely essential to decree exactly the effect we wanted."

At this point, Hamaguchi-san asked me what I thought about my experience with the Highwind, but my demo was not scheduled until the next day.

After hearing that the others in the room had immediately gone straight to Wutai, he gave me some sage advice, laughing: "Don't just go straight to Wutai. Fly around a bit. See the world first."

Final Fantasy 7 Revelation releases on 8 April 2027 for PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S and Nintendo Switch 2.

View Green Video on the source website

Check out more of our Gaming coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.