Game development is an expensive process. How long will it take to make FFVII in its entirety to today's standards? There were four years between Skyrim and Fallout 4.I am confident that FFVII R has much better graphics than Fallout 4 and much more diverse areas where you simply can't cut and paste like you might do for Ruined Office Building #5.

Square-Enix are also... shall we say... less efficient than other companies. See: Kingdom Hearts III and FF Versus XIII aka FFXV. They've continually been pumping millions into these projects. They are both failures already as there is no way they will be able to make back what they've lost on them. Hell, look at their (not Japanese developed but) franchises Tomb Raider, Hitman and Sleeping Dogs. They all failed them despite selling millions.

Based on the above, I'll be really smurfing surprised if FFVII is completed in four years. I wouldn't be if it takes double that. They can't take another huge disaster like XV. They can't work on any more projects for years upon years without any signs of breaking even on it, much less profit. Space constraints, as I think NeoCracker said, is bulltrout. They're being forced to do this because it is not remotely financially viable to make FFVII in 2015 (and onwards) and release it as a single game.

It seems as though they've learned their lessons from the XV disaster and that's why they're trying something new. I don't like it, you don't like it, none of us like it. We'd all like to have FFVII Remake delivered for (price of triple A game in your country) in completeness tomorrow. I don't believe that it's possible. If this is what it takes to achieve it, so be it. If indie games that took a month to make are sold for $1 I don't have a problem with a multi-million budget game which has been worked on by thousands of staff for years costing more than a usual title. That's just simple business. Of course, I'm not overly sympathetic to Square-Enix and a decade of mismanagement means this is nobody's fault but theirs but I think that's how it's got to be.