Naoki Hamaguchi has revealed during an interview with Automaton that Final Fantasy VII Remake Part 3‘s overall quality won’t be compromised in wake of news that it will be produced with multiple platforms in mind, not just Sony hardware.
The Final Fantasy VII Remake project director assured that the decision to develop the third part for multiple systems “will not in any way lower the quality of the third instalment. Our development structure simply doesn’t work that way to begin with…I suppose I’ll just have to keep saying it.”
Hamaguchi-san also replied to the notion that some players may consider his above statement as marketing chatter, stating he would “like to take this opportunity” to detail “why there’s no need for concern.” With that in mind, he touched base on the Switch 2 hardware.
As for RAM, the Switch 2’s ample memory means there’s little concern there. The Xbox Series S does have its limits, but we already optimize for each platform individually to the absolute limit, so memory constraints on one platform don’t impose restrictions on others.
He explained the the FFVII Remake Part 3 team consider that if a game is able to run at 30 FPS on Switch 2 or Xbox Series S, it should be able to achieve 60 FPS on a high-end system. “In other words, we don’t design the game to fully saturate a high-end CPU at 30 FPS,” commented Hamaguchi.
Instead, on hardware that lends additional CPU headroom, we scale density elements, like increasing the number of NPCs in towns. As a result, towns feel more alive on higher-spec hardware, while lower-spec systems may display fewer NPCs. So even when factoring in Nintendo Switch 2 or Xbox Series S support, CPU-related bottlenecks are unlikely.
As our fundamental principle, we do not design assets to meet the lowest baseline. Instead, we create them for high-end environments first.” The team therefore develops with a high-spec PC as its lead platform, and proceeds to scale the game down accordingly until it hits the lowest specifications.
Hamaguchi recently stated that the third and final chapter in the remake project will utilise Unreal Engine 4 rather than make the jump to UE5, but noted the team has “made a lot of modifications to fit our needs.” A release date for Final Fantasy VII Remake Part 3 has yet to be announced, but the final title for the project has already been nailed down.