Equip your materia and grab your oversized buster sword. Fans around the world squeed with joy at this year’s E3 when Square Enix announced at Sony’s press conference their intention of remaking Final Fantasy VII. Since then, very little in terms of details has been released as of yet. Well, we got our first piece of news, and depending on how you feel about game engines, it could be taken as good news or bad.
Square Enix has stated at this year’s Gamescom that the new remake will not be developed in their newest and long-awaited Luminous Engine, but is opting instead to go with Unreal Engine 4. While several of their more recent games have been designed using their in-house proprietary software Crystal Tools, including the XIII series along with their redesigned Online outing, why the company would go with Unreal 4 is unclear.
“Final Fantasy VII is not planned to be made with that,†said Hajim Tabata, director of Final Fantasy XV, when asked about the Luminous Engine’s involvement with the remake.
This isn’t the first time the company has shied away from its own technology, as Kingdom Hearts 3 was originally believed to be built using Luminous, but that game has also jumped over to Unreal’s camp as well.
Creator of Kingdom Hearts 3 and Final Fantasy 7’s remake Tetsuya Nomura explained in an interview his company’s shift to Unreal. He stated it was “for various reasons,†and went on to admit that “there is some difficulty rendering images. And with the full support of Epic Games, we’ll be able to progress smoothly.â€
He has also stated that the new remake will not only feature ‘dramatic changes’ to the overall experience, but also add in inspiration from his film Advent Children, which was part of the Compilation of Final Fantasy 7. There’s no word how much influence from other entries in that collection will be, but there is also a prequel in Crisis Core and a sequel Dirge of Cerberus.
While there has been no confirmed platforms other than PS4 at this time, many of Final Fantasy’s entries can be purchased on Steam, including 3,4,8,13,14 and Type-0; not to mention the original version of FF7. There’s currently a petition circulating the internet to get not only the Final Fantasy 7 remake but Square’s newest entry Final Fantasy 15 onto the PC.
Will the game live up to the years of speculation and hype? Is Luminous too hard for the studio to produce games on? Keep reading Mouse n Joypad for more details on this series as news develops.