Square Enix has a big year ahead of it: This summer, the game is releasing Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, followed this fall by its next major flagship game, the very long-awaited Final Fantasy XV. But that’s just this year. Those games will be big, but they’re nothing compared to the excitement around Final Fantasy 7 Remake. Trouble is, we have no idea when that game will come out, even if we see it at E3. It’s definitely not coming out until after April 2017, but realistically it’s probably going to be years. And that means we better hope it doesn’t end up being quasi-vaporware like Final Fantasy Versus XIII.
Final Fantasy 7 Remake Better Not Be Like Final Fantasy Versus XIII
Final Fantasy 7 Remake is the biggest news to come out of Square Enix in some ungodly number of years. The announcement of the game brought about huge excitement, both from longtime fans of the original game and from newcomers who were always curious about it. It’s going to be huge.
But Square Enix has admitted that development on the game has barely started. Even the gameplay trailer we saw is more of an early-stage proof of concept. The company is breaking up the game into several parts, but even the first one is going to be years away. It’s an open question as to when we’ll see the game again. It won’t be a surprise if we see the game at E3 2016, but don’t expect any actual news about it for some time yet. The focus will be squarely on FFXV and Deus Ex.
We have reason to be wary. Square Enix did something like this once before, when it announced Fabula Nova Crystalis, the Final Fantasy XIII suite that at the time included a game called Versus XIII. That was announced… wait for it… in 2006. It’s finally coming out in its new form, Final Fantasy XV, in 2016. You do the math. Okay, never mind, I’ll do it for you: that’s ten years. Ten years between the announcement and release.
Square Enix has hopefully learned its lesson, since the constant lack of news about Versus XIII hurt the company’s efforts with the actual games it was actually selling. So, with any luck, we’ll see Final Fantasy 7 Remake regularly from here on out. That’s just good business, and will keep our excitement up, even if the game doesn’t come out until 2019 or something. Let’s just hope it doesn’t disappear entirely into the ether.
