FF7R Part 2: You Can (Not) Release

[Karifean]

Sooo now that we've pretty much reached the point of the release of part 1 of the FF7 Remake, when do you all actually think the next part is going to be out? One year, two years, three?

Also, how many parts do you think will the remake have overall, and do you think the intervals between releases will be consistent?

Discuss.

[Fynn]

Five years at least, imo. I think Kitase has said several months ago that they hadn’t even started planning out part two yet. Of course, they might stick to the same engine, but chances are they’ll also make it completely from the ground up, especially since it’ll be coming to PS5 most likely. It’s more likely they’ll stick to this engine if they do a simultaneous PS4/5 thing so people who started on PS4 don’t miss out

[WarZidane]

Second half of 2023, after a delay from the first half of 2023.

Based on them managing to get part 1 done in 3 years after they ditched cyberconnect2 and started from not-quite-scratch, and the fact they now already have the basis to work with, even if they'll need new assets and such, and a plan on how to tackle the actual overworld.

[Levian]

Maybe in the same pace as FFXIII, FFXIII-2 and FFXIII-3, two years apart.

[Aulayna]

My optimistic estimate is first half of 2023. My more realistic estimate is latter half of 2023. My cynical estimate is it'll get cancelled.

[Lord Golbez]

I don't think it will be canceled. I think part 3 will be canceled.

[Fynn]

Nah, I think they’ll finish it. It’s a pretty safe bet.

[Wolf Kanno]

They confirmed back in November (https://www.ign.com/articles/2019/11/25/final-fantasy-7-remake-part-2-already-being-worked-on) that they had already started work on Part 2, though no real details. Assuming they use the same engine and assuming they toss the world map idea, I can see Part 2 coming out in 2022 optimistically, and 2023 realistically. I feel the biggest hurdle will be the transition to the next console generation, so I can see them delaying the PS4 version so they can finish the PS5 one (more realistically, they would make Part 2 for the PS5 and simply scale it down for PS4) and have them release at the same time.

[Psychotic]

I don't think you can make an accurate prediction to the cancellation of the other part(s) until you see how well Part 1 sells. I have a feeling it's going to make a lot of money.

[Lord Golbez]

They've probably had PS5 development kits for pretty much the entire time they've been working on part 2, so the scaling down a PS5 game seems pretty likely to me.

A prediction on cancellation is binary. A reliable prediction? Maybe not. An accurate prediction? Either the people who have predicted cancellation or the people who have predicted completion already have made one.

[Shiva95]

I think it would be similar to FFXIII trilogy, so approximately two years between each part. However, the planning of part 2 has already started, so we could hope for more quickly :P

[Aulayna]

I don't think you can make an accurate prediction to the cancellation of the other part(s) until you see how well Part 1 sells. I have a feeling it's going to make a lot of money.

TBF this is Square Enix we're talking about, ANYTHING is possible lol

[Psychotic]

Do Square have a history of cancelling major titles? Even KH3 and the Versus/XV shambles saw the light of day eventually!

[Aulayna]

Do Square have a history of cancelling major titles? Even KH3 and the Versus/XV shambles saw the light of day eventually!

Purely playing devils advocate here:

Not in the past 5 years or so, but they cancelled a couple of titles in the early 2010s. Plus they are also the same company that:

- Were disappointed with the Tomb Raider reboot selling "only" 3.4 million copies in its first month on sale.
- Scrapped the second season of DLC for FFXV despite the game being profitable from its first day on sale (and being the 4th highest selling title behind VII, XIV, and X), relegated said DLCs to a book that hasn't even been released in the West yet.
- Don't exactly have a track record of direct "sequels" selling as well as the original title.
- Go quick buck chasing in the mobile space.
- Shown with FFXIII and Fabula Nova Crystallis, by extension FFXV, the original FFXIV release, and KH3 that they sometimes have too grand a vision and stuff gets bogged down in development hell, or has to be re-scoped so much that the quality ends up getting sacrificed.

If VIIRP2 doesn't sell as well as they'd hope, I don't see it outside the realm of possibility that could drop the rest of the project entirely, put it on ice for 5-10 years, scope change it, or made it a low priority in favour of allocating resources elsewhere. They could even just decide that the quality bar they'd need to hit is too high, and postpone indefinitely to avoid a massive backlash on a product so much of their reputation rides on. Or heck they get a change of direction at the higher levels internally who think another goose is more golden and worth chasing - and that a gargantuan resource project like VIIR isn't worth the investment anymore, especially when much of their key talent is tied up in it.

I mean I've worked in the industry for 12 years and know that nothing is certain even when something seems like a guaranteed gold mine and I've seen sound decisions get overturned by dubious executive calls. People come. People go. Shareholders exert pressure. Bad decisions get made. Good decisions don't pan out etc. Some new tech makes pursuing a different path seem more lucrative than something else. Quite a lot of the SQEX board of directors are coming up to the retirement age in Japan too, and having witnessed first-hand the stark change in direction that can happen at a company when it's core directors retire... nothing is beyond the realm of possibility.

So yeah, while I think the likelihood of VIIRP2 being cancelled at this point is almost non-existent (hence why I said it was my cynical estimate), it's not impossible. Heck, despite all those words I think a general cancellation of the whole project is very unlikely - but nothing should be taken for granted.

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I think the biggest question mark in terms of time between releases will be the PS5 and whether or not they decide to go for a World Map. Part of me expects we'll see an "Enhanced" version of P1 on the PS5 - maybe as a standalone release before P2, maybe bundled with P2, as I'm fairly sure Sony are going to have some eggs in this basket with a view to use VIIR as a system seller for PS5.

[Loony BoB]

FFVII Remake is being talked about by everyone and I'm not even in the FF community circles anymore. And so far everyone I know that has played it has enjoyed it, and those that have seen stuff are excited. I don't think it'll get any cancellations because as far as I can see it's going to be a commercial and critical success.

As for when the next part is released, I agree with Lev, I'm hoping for two years at most between them. I think now that they have the battle system, engine, etc. down and they even know that people enjoy what they're getting, they have no reason to really delay other than the padding of the story etc. Even with XIII series, they changed battle system and the entire 'style' of gameplay each time. This time they don't have to worry about that. It's more like Tomb Raider games, but even then they have less work to do because in Tomb Raider they had to write up the next story from scratch each time, and most of this stuff is already done for FFVII. TR games took about two years to release. They probably had to wait a little to start the next games each time, too, I imagine. In this case I expect the work - regardless of what Kitase says - is already at least somewhat underway for episode 2.

Porting to PS5 might make it trickier, but my understanding of PS4/PS5 is that they are both far more user friendly than the PS2/3 were when it comes to porting and engines etc.

[Mr Gashtacular]

I feel there will be a natural diminishing returns thing going and I don't know if SE are the type to accept that.

I doubt the second episode will be cancelled but it would be more likely that a third or a fourth would be.

Hopefully not, though.

[Loony BoB]

I think there is zero chance they'll cancel any of the episodes. This is the biggest money haul SE are going to get for a long time. FFVII Remake is now the third most watched game on Twitch, ahead of Just Chatting, Dota 2, CSGO, Fortnite, CoD, Hearthstone, GTA V, WoW, Animal Crossing, Minecraft etc. Only LoL and Valorant are beating it. Everyone is so far loving the game, they have zero reason to not complete the game. They might shorten the "added content" in future episodes if anything, but they won't cancel them. They've done episodic games before successfully, it should be remembered.

I browsed around online and the general feeling is that it should be around 2021 for the next episode. I'm not sure that's realistic but hell, some people think it could be as soon as this year because they think it'll be the equivalent of DLC. I disagree on that, they'll make it a full new game like Mass Effect was. So I think 2021-2022 is a reasonable expectation at this point, although I'll be a little disappointed if it's 2022 because I get the feeling by the time I finish this game I'll be wanting the next episode pretty fast. :D

[tony123]

Yeah I am sure enough people will buy the first game to warrant the second being made however I also feel like the second game won't sell nearly as well as this game will and a potential third game could become questionable (they might want to wrap it up in game 2). No matter how much you enjoy seeing these beloved characters in ps4 graphics it still doesn't change the fact that this game tried to turn about an eight hour section of the original story into about a 30-35 hour long game and made people pay 60 dollars for it. And they didn't expand the Midgar section in very fluid ways to get to that additional game time. Instead of expanding the Avalanche story by introducing a lot of brand new main characters that weren't in the first game the remake instead chose to get to 30 hours of gameplay by having a lot of overly lengthy dungeons and a lot of poorly placed sidequests that hurt the overall narrative of the story. Also the story just got a little weird at the end because they tried to turn what was never intended to be a complete story into a complete story that had a sense of finality to it. I don't think nearly as many people will be willing to dish out sixty dollars for a second time. I think to warrant another sixty dollar purchase they are really going to have to change things up such as kill off a different character other than Aerith or don't have any of the main characters die.

[Loony BoB]

They'll finish it no matter what. Tomb Raider didn't sell as well as they had liked and they made two more games. They'll know it's diminishing returns over time but they'll also know that this is a no-brainer that they have to complete it. The game will sell easily.

Also, I'm only up to Wall Market and I have already got my money's worth. I'm actually astonished at how well this game has turned out, I wasn't expecting it. This game is genuinely good. Some people might not like that they turned 8 hours into 30+ hours but I'm delighted they have, and I know many more feel the same. They have fleshed out this game and the characters to the perfect degree, and I can totally see why they've done everything they've done so far through my playthrough. No overdosing on sidequests, either... they just throw six in every few hours and that's it.

I can't say for the later parts of the game that I've not played but so far this is a fantastic game, it's getting fantastic reviews, everyone is buying it and most are enjoying it, I don't see any reason at all that they won't finish this when they know all about episodic content from Life is Strange.

[Jiro]

Even the most cynical part of me feels like we're definitely getting a next part, at least. Could not possibly guess at a time frame, though: there's so much gratuitous stuff in FF7R ( the assets and models for flashback-Nibelheim, parts of Midgar we never saw before, little system edits like the stairs climbing "race") that might be reusable, or might mean a metric fuckload of resources that need to be done to blow out the timeline. Everything feels so fucking meticulous in FF7R that I wouldn't be surprised if the console generation thing really makes the next chapter a super delayed delivery.

[tony123]

They'll finish it no matter what. Tomb Raider didn't sell as well as they had liked and they made two more games. They'll know it's diminishing returns over time but they'll also know that this is a no-brainer that they have to complete it. The game will sell easily.

Also, I'm only up to Wall Market and I have already got my money's worth. I'm actually astonished at how well this game has turned out, I wasn't expecting it. This game is genuinely good. Some people might not like that they turned 8 hours into 30+ hours but I'm delighted they have, and I know many more feel the same. They have fleshed out this game and the characters to the perfect degree, and I can totally see why they've done everything they've done so far through my playthrough. No overdosing on sidequests, either... they just throw six in every few hours and that's it.

I can't say for the later parts of the game that I've not played but so far this is a fantastic game, it's getting fantastic reviews, everyone is buying it and most are enjoying it, I don't see any reason at all that they won't finish this when they know all about episodic content from Life is Strange.

Loony Bob I think it depends on what you are comparing it to. If you are comparing it to games released in the late '90's/early '00's it is indeed a fabulous game. However if you are comparing it to some of the better titles released post 2010 or so when gaming companies really started upping the standards for narrative storytelling I don't think FF7R holds up nearly as well. A lot of the better games of today are able to seamlessly combine gameplay and storytelling together in order to tell a very fluid narrative. Twenty years ago or so stories in video games pretty much just existed to connect one boss fight to the other so the FF7 story really seemed crazy good in comparison to it competition of the time. Now though we have games like Last of Us, Red Dead Redemption, God of War....plus several others that tend to make the video game stories of twenty years ago seem a little rough.

I think if they were going to choose to remake FF7 and release it in 2020 they should have tried to give it a narrative that could stand up to the stories of the better games of the current era. Not just allow the player to explore the world of Midgar a little more thoroughly than they could before or give the characters in the game just a little bit more development.

For example one thing they could have done is expand Avalanche and instead of it just being about Barrett and Tifa and a mercenary named Cloud have it be about dozens of different groups and how they plot together to take down Shinra. Show a little bit of politics going on within the Avalanche organization and which cells get a long with each other and which cells have problems with each other. Develop some stories like that instead of just going through two hour long dungeons and having Cloud and Tifa running around looking for little kids cats.

[Loony BoB]

Loony Bob I think it depends on what you are comparing it to. If you are comparing it to games released in the late '90's/early '00's it is indeed a fabulous game. However if you are comparing it to some of the better titles released post 2010 or so when gaming companies really started upping the standards for narrative storytelling I don't think FF7R holds up nearly as well. A lot of the better games of today are able to seamlessly combine gameplay and storytelling together in order to tell a very fluid narrative.
Well, the people who are watching my stream are all wanting to go buy the game now, everyone has been commenting on how the game flows so nicely, so I guess it's definitely a matter of opinion. But by and large the users around the world have been praising FFVII Remake so far, even metacritic which is notorious for really bad scores in early days of a game has been solidly green throughout the opening weekend (it was 7.7 yesterday, it's 8.0 today). That's not a regular thing for a massive release.

If FFXIV can be literally rebuilt from scratch and FFXIII can get two sequels, FFVII Remake can easily get four episodes if not more. Not saying I want it to be four episodes, just saying I think the idea of them cancelling FFVII instead of finishing it is completely out of the question for a company like Square Enix.

[tony123]

Well, the people who are watching my stream are all wanting to go buy the game now, everyone has been commenting on how the game flows so nicely, so I guess it's definitely a matter of opinion. But by and large the users around the world have been praising FFVII Remake so far, even metacritic which is notorious for really bad scores in early days of a game has been solidly green throughout the opening weekend (it was 7.7 yesterday, it's 8.0 today). That's not a regular thing for a massive release.

If FFXIV can be literally rebuilt from scratch and FFXIII can get two sequels, FFVII Remake can easily get four episodes if not more. Not saying I want it to be four episodes, just saying I think the idea of them cancelling FFVII instead of finishing it is completely out of the question for a company like Square Enix.

It also may just depend on what kinds of games people enjoy. I don't believe JRPG's put as much focus on the narrative in general as say Rockstar or NaughtyDog does. I would imagine a lot of the people watching your stream are fellow fans of JRPG's. FF7 was the first story driven game I ever played so started playing other JRPG's after that but have since become more interested in the more realistic and gritty narratives that other companies produce. FFX was really the last Final Fantasy that I actually finished. Started XII and XIII but never finished them.

[Loony BoB]

I would imagine a lot of the people watching your stream are fellow fans of JRPG's.
xD Maybe ten years ago, but not today. My watchers play Call of Duty, League of Legends, Animal Crossing, Skyrim, Minecraft... basically whatever is out there.


FF7 was the first story driven game I ever played so started playing other JRPG's after that but have since become more interested in the more realistic and gritty narratives that other companies produce. FFX was really the last Final Fantasy that I actually finished. Started XII and XIII but never finished them.
It sounds to me like you're just not into a modern JRPG and that's okay. But I wouldn't put your judgement of the game as a reason to ignore the general public any more than I'd put my judgement of XIII (which I enjoyed) ahead of the general public when considering how critically successful it was. In the end, FFXV, WoFF, FFVII Remake and FFXIV 2.0 onwards have all had huge success, and the 'failures' of XIII, XIV 1.0 and (apparently, according to Square Enix) Tomb Raider have all led to them working even harder on those games, not less so. I can't remember the last time Square Enix just said "well, it's not that great so let's give up on it" with an AAA title.

[tony123]

It sounds to me like you're just not into a modern JRPG and that's okay. But I wouldn't put your judgement of the game as a reason to ignore the general public any more than I'd put my judgement of XIII (which I enjoyed) ahead of the general public when considering how critically successful it was. In the end, FFXV, WoFF, FFVII Remake and FFXIV 2.0 onwards have all had huge success, and the 'failures' of XIII, XIV 1.0 and (apparently, according to Square Enix) Tomb Raider have all led to them working even harder on those games, not less so. I can't remember the last time Square Enix just said "well, it's not that great so let's give up on it" with an AAA title.

Yeah that's true. I guess my biggest issue with JRPG's that have the more modern graphics is that if the characters are going to look more realistic I want them to act more realistic as well. Which characters in JRPG's from what I have seen tend not to do (at least in regards to Final Fantasy).

I made a joke in the other thread about all the in your face flirting that was going on during the first five to ten hours of the game and said that I wouldn't have been surprised at all if Jessie or Tifa asked Cloud to go to bed with them. I said that during the first five hours Avalanche seemed like more of a group of horny college kids who had Friday night orgies with each other than an underground group attempting to overthrow a government.

[Loony BoB]

Girls in slums gotta take what buff young men with gorgeous mako eyes they can get. ;) Although Biggs is way nicer in my opinion. xD

[Fox]

I'm going to play the optimist and say first half of '22. Mainly because there's a lot of pre-production and 'getting tech working' nonsense that they've already got out of the way. Watching their Inside FFVII Remake videos they showed off things like how they built a system so that the sounds that play in-engine are all physically simulated. Well, as long as they keep the same engine that system will keep working into the future.

They've already prototyped and refined the combat system, including materia and equipment, into a good place. They already have a huge stock of art assets, animations, music and so on. And I suspect they've been doing some work on the future content for a good 18 months or so, minimum.

Now that I've completed part 1, I hope we see something on part 2 next year. Even if it's just a tiny teaser trailer. '22 is optimistic but plausible, and definitely what I'm hoping for. Anything later than '23 would be quite disappointing.

[tony123]

Girls in slums gotta take what buff young men with gorgeous mako eyes they can get. ;) Although Biggs is way nicer in my opinion. xD

I'll wait until you finish the game before I start discussing some of my irritations regarding how the developers handled the Jessie character.

[Depression Moon]

trout man, I don't know. My original plans was to wait and buy part 1 until part 2 comes out, but with this lockdown situation I might give in if this goes into May, but I do have Doom Eternal and the rest of the games I haven't played in the Kingdom Hearts All-in-One Package to hold me over for a long time.

With this virus situation it will definitely slow down development. I'm not sure I was hoping it would release next year, but I'm going to say 2022 now. It's so crazy We're still on a remake of a 20 year old game and I doubt XVI will be coming out until all of VII is done with. I remember when we used to get a new Final Fantasy every couple years.

[tony123]

I remember when we used to get a new Final Fantasy every couple years.

Takes a lot longer to create the graphics now than it did then.

[Mercen-X]

I think Nomura is gonna try to release that Yozora game sometime next year. If not then after R2. I don't know what other properties SQEX has planned right now.

[Madame Adequate]

I'm expecting a similar schedule to the XIII games, but I wouldn't be surprised if that changes now.

The worst anyone's really saying about FF7R is "I don't like [infamous plot addition] but the other 95% of the game owns" and that it's selling like toilet paper, I don't see any conceivable way this series gets cancelled.

[Mercen-X]

Oh no, there wasn't any doubt going in that this was gonna succeed. At least insofar as the SQEX round table was concerned. Fans may have been tossing around demands like "it better have this/that" (particularly the drag event) but even the wannabe skeptics had some inkling that this could not fail in our reality. Maybe in the Upside Down or Mirrorverse, but definitely not here.

[nirojan]

Assuming they don't divert Toriyama's team to FF XVI, I think they should hit 2022 without any major issues. Unreal has probably helped them move things thru the pipeline much easier. I have to imagine Nomura will be less hands-on when things for the next KH start ramping up. But it shouldn't have to be a prolonged 3 year dev cycle....if we're lucky