Final Fantasy 7 Revelation Director Explains Unreal Engine 4 Decision
▼ Summary
– Final Fantasy 7 Revelation will continue using Unreal Engine 4 instead of upgrading to Unreal Engine 5.
– Director Naoki Hamaguchi said switching to UE5 would lengthen development, which is not optimal from a business or player perspective.
– The team had already customized UE4 for the remake series, so staying with it allowed faster delivery using a familiar workflow.
– Hamaguchi decided early to stick with UE4 and prohibited debate to avoid confusion during development.
– The team created its own rendering system similar to UE5’s Nanite feature for Rebirth, achieving comparable visual quality.
Naoki Hamaguchi, the director of Final Fantasy 7 Revelation, has shed light on why the team opted to stick with Unreal Engine 4 rather than upgrading to Unreal Engine 5 for the upcoming RPG. This decision may surprise some, given that Square Enix’s previous titles in the series, Final Fantasy 7 Remake and Rebirth, were built on the same technology, and UE5 has been available for some time.
In an interview with 4Gamer, Hamaguchi explained that migrating to Unreal Engine 5 would have significantly extended the development timeline, which he argued wouldn’t benefit the business or the players. He noted that the team had already created its own version of UE5’s Nanite feature within UE4, allowing them to achieve comparable visual quality without the costly transition.
Here is the full translation of his remarks:
“For the average person, there’s an impression that bigger numbers are better, so people may think, ‘Is it okay to not use Unreal Engine 5?’” Hamaguchi said with a laugh. “But simply, for this series, considering a business perspective and a player perspective, I believe that getting the game out as quickly as possible is the best thing to do.”
He elaborated that the team had already customized UE4 extensively for the remake series. “We decided delivering the game quickly to players with a workflow that we were used to was best, rather than resetting everything to restart with UE5, build everything again and extend the development time.”
Hamaguchi revealed he made the call early on. “Quite early on I told the team, ‘This time we will continue with UE4, and we won’t debate that.’” When asked if anyone objected, he acknowledged that creators often want to try new tools. “I anticipated people saying things like ‘They added this new feature, are we not able to use it?’ So because of that, from very early on we decided to stay with UE4 and not get confused along the way.”
Reflecting on the choice, Hamaguchi expressed confidence. “I think now that was the correct decision. Of course, we have made and extended engines as a team, so with UE4 if we faced problems, we could alter it ourselves.”
He emphasized that the final output is what matters most. “You often hear of something called Nanite when discussing UE5, but when we made Rebirth we made our own rendering system that was basically the same as Nanite, so we were able to have a comparable quality to UE5. As a development team we’ve made lots of AAA games up until now, so I hope players can place their trust in us.”
The positive reception to the game’s graphics at Summer Game Fest was a relief, Hamaguchi said. “The video we released at SGF had a very positive reaction to the graphics, which was relieving for us. We have confidence in what we will deliver to players, and I think that confidence is expressed well.”
(Source: Nintendoeverything.com)
