Final Fantasy 7 Revelation is shaping up to be the biggest entry in the remake trilogy by a considerable margin, as game director Naoki Hamaguchi estimates that a complete playthrough of everything that the game has to offer could take up to 100 hours. That includes the campaign, side activities, and endgame content–something that Hamaguchi has experienced dozens of times for himself throughout the development of Revelation.
This is all part of the job; to ensure that players enjoy a smooth experience, the developers have to check every part of the game for any potential issues. “In a standard playthrough from beginning to end, if I were to review and check every single asset and element in the game, it’ll easily take over a hundred hours,” Hamaguchi said to GameSpot. “Obviously, I can’t do that in each and every single playthrough. As the director, I don’t have enough time for that, so sometimes I would just skip combat and focus on checking the main story. In different playthroughs, I focus on different elements.”
In total, Hamaguchi said he had completed 46 playthroughs by the time he was interviewed. So how do you get so many game completions under your belt, when the game in question is so lengthy? Hamaguchi explained that he’d devoted all his time to playtesting the game, and he even slipped in a few testing sessions between interviews on the current Final Fantasy 7 Revelation press tour.
“I will try to do these playthroughs as much time as time allows,” he said. “Yesterday, during a separate round of interviews, when there was downtime, I actually did bring a PS5 controller, so I checked the latest version of the build. Even on business trips, if there’s even a small amount of time that I have available, I’ll try to check the latest version of the game to see if there are any issues.”
While Final Fantasy 7 Revelation might monopolize all your attention when it launches, the team at Square Enix also wants to respect your time. Minigames aren’t essential to the game’s main campaign, you can skip through cutscenes if you want, and pacing has also been adjusted to keep the story moving. For more on the game, you can check out how Red XIII might steal the spotlight during the snowboarding minigame, why The Witcher 3 continues to inspire Hamaguchi, and what Chadley will be up to in the game.
Final Fantasy 7 Revelation launches for PC, PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and Switch 2 on April 8, 2027.
Interview conducted by Emma Fyffe.