For a long time now, PC gamers have been used to the Final Fantasy series treating their platform as somewhat secondary to the game’s core console versions. There are some signs that may be starting to change, though, as director Naoki Hamaguchi has confirmed that the PC is now the “lead platform” for development of the Final Fantasy VII Remake trilogy.
In a recent interview with Automaton, Hamaguchi clarified that the team takes the relatively common practice of creating visual assets for its multiplatform games by targeting “high-end environments first,” then performing a “reduction” for less powerful platforms. These days, that means “our 3D assets are created at the highest quality level based on PC as the foundation,” he said. Players have already noticed this graphical difference in the PC version of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, Hamaguchi said, and “our philosophy will not change for the third installment.”
While PC gaming is only “gradually expanding in Japan,” Hamaguchi said the rapid growth in international PC gamers has led the company to “develop assets with the broad PC market in mind.”
The PC versions of recent Final Fantasy VII Remake games have sold well on Steam and the Epic Games Store, he added.
It’s unclear if that means PC gamers will have to wait longer than console owners for future Final Fantasy games. The first Final Fantasy VII Remake didn’t hit PCs until 19 months after the PlayStation 4 version, and Rebirth was first available on PC 11 months after its PS5 launch. Elsewhere in the franchise, the PC versions of both Final Fantasy XVI and Final Fantasy XV didn’t hit until over a year after their console counterparts.
“Mid-range platforms”
Elsewhere in the interview, Hamaguchi went into some detail about what he sees as the relative deficiencies of various game consoles. Compared to a high-end PC, for instance, Hamaguchi said he considers the PS5 and PS5 Pro “mid-range platforms” that require texture sizes, mesh loads, and polygon counts that are 1.5 to 3 times lower than the PC versions. Further down the line, the Steam Deck operates “at less than half the PS5’s baseline,” Hamaguchi said.
Further considerations are necessary for other consoles. On the PS4, Switch 2, and Xbox Series S, for instance, Hamaguchi said the relative limitations of the CPU generally require limiting graphics to 30 fps (rather than the 60 fps on high-end platforms), as well as reducing the number of NPCs that can appear in a town when compared to higher-end systems. Hamaguchi also specifically called out the memory limitations on the Xbox Series S, which requires specific optimizations compared to the “ample memory” available on the Switch 2.
Development of the third part of the Final Fantasy VII Remake trilogy is “progressing very smoothly,” Hamaguchi said, and the team is currently “almost exactly on schedule” with planned development milestones.
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