Final Fantasy VII Remake Still Priority, Says Kingdom Hearts III Director

It's done, gaming family. E3 2018 has finally come to a close and what an amazing week of announcements and gaming celebrations. Though Sony's conference was drastically different th an it has been in the past, they showed some absolutely stunning footage as well as that epic Resident Evil 2 remake reveal. Less stunning was that of the Square Enix showcase, which was glaringly lacking any promised info regarding the Final Fantasy VII remake. This absence made many wonder if it's been nudged out of the way for Kingdom Hearts 3, especially since it's the same director working on both. Luckily, it doesn't look like that's the case.

Director Tetsuya Nomura recently told The Verge recently that "We are developing [Final Fantasy VII] in parallel, and it's not just in the early concept stages. We are actually in development."

Both projects are impressive, with both also demanding a lot of attention to detail. Kingdom Hearts for its highly intricate narrative, and Final Fantasy VII because it is a complete rework from the original. Because both undertakings are definitely time consuming, it's understandable that one would inevitably fall behind. But, Nomura-san assures fans that it is still very much a priority and being actively worked on.

"So right now," he mentioned. "It's like I've been putting in 100 percent into Kingdom Hearts, 100 percent into Final Fantasy VII, 100 percent into Kingdom Hearts... just going back and forth," he says. "It's just like [working on] two titles is just going to be one [after Kingdom Hearts III's launch]. That's pretty much how I see it."

The good news is that we finally have a release date for Kingdom Hearts III, which will be coming in January of next year, meaning the divisive attention can be remedied to the one title once more. Though Kingdom Hearts III was delayed quite a few times, Nomura-san did mention that it wasn't because it was unfinished - but that they wanted to add even more phenomenal material:

"We were told by many people, including hardware manufacturers, sales teams, marketing teams, that it just wasn't good timing in the year," Nomura told the site. "For Kingdom Hearts III, the Western offices requested to release the game as simultaneously as possible between Japan and America, so we no longer were able to just think about Japanese issues and retail situations."

Despite the long wait, fans can't wait to jump back into the world once more with Sora and the gang for Kingdom Hearts III, and I can't personally wait to see Sephiroth once more in Final Fantasy VII. We'll be learning more soon enough, but for now - at least we know it's still very much active!