Howdy, so I thought for my first main post on the forum I'd share my thinking about how the rest of the story will be divided up.

I originally thought it was obvious that it would be just 3 separate full-length games. But then they go and make Midgar into an entire game, and now I think 3 games is basically impossible unless they completely backtrack on their original rationale for dividing it up: that they didn't want to cut or condense anything. They only wanted to add and expand.

My basic theory here is that the length of each part of the story is going to massively change from the original because the key factor has now become the physical scale of the world itself. That was far less of an issue in the original. You could travel across the world map in mere seconds, and supposedly large areas could take up tiny amounts of development time for them (e.g City of Junon was like 5 or 6 screens). That is no longer true. The physical size of the map and the size of towns/cities will determine how things get divided up because they determine how much development time is needed for Squenix, as well as how much disc storage. So my prediction is that the game will be divided into 4 total parts (3 remaining) based on physical area. As follows:

Game 2 - The eastern continent. Open World->Kalm->Kalm Flashback (includes development of Nibelheim and Mt Nibel areas)->Open World->Choco Farm->Swamp->Mythril Mines->Open World->Extensive subplot involving meeting Yuffie in a forest->Fort Condor->Open World->Junon (lower village)->Junon (large upper city area)->Cargo ship. Final boss Jenova on ship like in original.

Game 3- The main continent. Costa Del Sol-> Open World->Corel-> Gold Saucer->Corel Prison->Open World->Gongaga->Open World->Cosmo Canyon->Nibelheim (already designed for Game 2 so no dev time needed)->Substory to get Vincent->Open World->Rocket Town to get Cid->Tiny Broncho exploration-> Temple of Ancients. I think Aerith will die at a different time and place than in the original, cos they don't want us to be ready for it. So I'm gonna guess she dies here instead, followed by final boss Sephiroth/Jenova.

Game 4- Wutai and the northern continent. The beginning of a new game is a good time to cut to the Wutai sub-plot, maybe they took some time off after the shock of losing Aerith. Next cuts to northern continent->Bone Village->City of ancients->Icicle Inn->Great Glacier->Gaea Cliff->Northern Cave-> Entire 'Weapon' subplot-> Cloud's confused identity-> Return to Midgar->Northern Crater final dungeon.

Part of the reason I think they might go for this, is because it would align perfectly with the challenges of making an open-world map, giving each game a clear physical boundary that corresponds to an ocean surrounding each landmass.

What does everyone think? Likely? Possible? Completely mental?