Final Fantasy 7 Remake Part 3 Director Says Fan Feedback Has Limits—Expect a Better JRPG Without Compromising Square Enix's Vision
Forget top-down mandates: the creative vision has to start with the creative team—or risk falling flat.
Square Enix says it hears the fans on Final Fantasy 7 Remake Part 3. It just won’t bend on the big stuff. The third and final entry is moving along behind the scenes — still no official title — and the team sounds confident it will top the first two. Given how Rebirth ended (yes, that ending), they know eyes are on them.
So, what are they actually changing?
In a recent interview, Naoki Hamaguchi — co-director on the original Remake and director of Rebirth — talked about how much fan feedback is shaping Part 3. Short version: the team reads a lot, absorbs a lot, and filters a lot.
"We do listen to a lot of feedback; it’s very important to us... but the core of the game comes from the creative team. That part isn’t dictated by feedback."
- On the table: Mini-games, tuning the difficulty, and other small quality-of-life tweaks. Hamaguchi says they try to be proactive about reflecting feedback in these areas.
- Off-limits: The core theme and the fundamental experience. The team wants a clear internal vision of what this finale is and won’t reshape that because of responses online.
Why this trilogy is a rare case of "live" iteration
Producer Yoshinori Kitase has pointed out the built-in advantage here: this is a trilogy. One game comes out, players react, and the team can adjust course for the next entry. Hamaguchi even compares it to a live service model — not the same business-wise, obviously — but similar in the way they can evolve based on real-time responses. It’s inside baseball, but it’s true: most developers don’t get to ship, learn, and then meaningfully pivot within the same multi-part story.
The promise: each entry should feel better than the last
The goal line hasn’t moved: they wanted Rebirth to be a better overall experience than Remake, and they want Part 3 to leap again. Hamaguchi says the team has learned what people want and like, and that should translate into a better final chapter. The game is "shaping up nicely," even if we still don’t know what they’re calling it.
About that Rebirth ending...
Hamaguchi is aware the discourse got loud. He insists Part 3 is in safe hands and says the finale will really reward everyone who sticks with the trilogy to the end. That’s the line you want to hear after a divisive middle chapter.
Bottom line: expect smarter tweaks and a surer hand, but don’t expect fan feedback to rewrite the core of what Part 3 is. Now if they could just tell us the title.