Hajime Tabata Would Pass On Taking Over Final Fantasy VII Remake, But Would Do A Final Fantasy VII-2

Final Fantasy XV director Hajime Tabata isn’t working on Final Fantasy VII Remake, but he was asked in a recent interview with Game Revolution at TGS 2017 if he’d take over the project if Square Enix were to offer the opportunity.

Here’s a snippet from the interview:

GameRevolution: Would you take over the Final Fantasy VII Remake if [Square Enix] offered that one to you?

Tabata: No.

GR: No, you wouldn’t!?

Tabata: No I wouldn’t.

GR: Can I ask why?

Tabata: It’s something I couldn’t make, myself. That’s about it.

GR: Would that be a lot of pressure?

Tabata: Final Fantasy VII is a special game.

GR: It’s the big one.

Tabata: It’s such a special numbered game that I don’t think I can remake that one. There’s so many fans out there, if I were asked to satisfy all those fans, I don’t think that’s something I could do, 100%. If [Square Enix] asked me to make a new Final Fantasy and take it in a new direction, I’d be happy to accept that one, but if they asked me to remake Final Fantasy VII — to release as if it were a modern game, just released today — no, I don’t think that’s something I can do. I think the only people who could do that are Mr. (Yoshinori) Kitase and Mr. (Tetsuya) Nomura.

GR: And you say that even though you did such a good job with Crisis Core?

Tabata: Well that wasn’t VII itself.

GR: A spinoff… a prequel.

Tabata: Yeah, it wasn’t the main game. Now, if they asked me to do Final Fantasy VII-2, that might be different.

GR: Which brings us back to your new project!

*Laughter in the room*

Tabata: We haven’t got that planned!

We’ll hear more from the rest of the Game Revolution interview with Hajime Tabata later this month.

Final Fantasy VII Remake is in development for PlayStation 4.