Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth Director Puts AI on Notice: His Team Will Outcreate It

Another big-name developer has weighed in on the AI question, and he is not exactly rushing to hand the keys to the bots. Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth director Naoki Hamaguchi says he is not on board with AI on the creative side of game development right now, and he is pretty clear about why: he trusts his team to out-create an algorithm.

Where he stands on AI

In a wide-ranging chat with GamesRadar+ (more of that interview is due out soon), Hamaguchi said that Square Enix does not currently have any formal rules about AI — no yes, no no, no playbook at all. That alone is a very deep-in-the-weeds detail you do not usually hear spelled out.

His personal stance, though, is firm: using AI for creative decision-making is not on his agenda. He did leave the door cracked for small, practical uses — think sourcing reference images or gathering materials — but that is as far as he is willing to go for now.

'At the moment, bringing AI into the creative part of development is not something I could move forward with.'

Efficiency vs. creativity

Plenty of developers talk about AI as a way to scrape off the busywork so artists and designers can focus on the good stuff. Hideo Kojima even called AI 'more of a friend' last week — one he would let 'handle the tedious tasks' to 'lower cost and cut down on time.' Hamaguchi is not blind to the efficiency argument, but he frames the real challenge as bigger than AI: modern game production is a tangle of budgets, staffing, and team management, and those problems need broader solutions. (He made these comments through a translator.)

What he will and will not use AI for

• Company policy: Square Enix has no set-down policies or rules on AI use right now.
• Creative work: He is not comfortable using AI to make creative calls.
• Tedious tasks: He is watching the efficiency conversation but sees it as part of a larger production puzzle, not an AI-only fix.
• Acceptable use (for now): Pulling references and resources — basically research helpers — is the line he is willing to cross.
• Philosophy: He wants his team to be the reason the work shines, not the software.

'However much AI tries to edge into the creative process, we want to be the kind of creators who can do better than AI — and we are going to push for that.'

And about what is next for FF7...

One more nugget from Hamaguchi: Square Enix is actively weighing add-on content for Final Fantasy 7 Remake Part 3 — and maybe even another full installment. In his words, things are still very much up in the air.