Happy birthday to Final Fantasy 8 – it has turned 25. Despite many fans’ hopes for a remake, it seems unlikely to happen. The director of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, Naoki Hamaguchi, has firmly declined the idea of spearheading another remake project. Even Final Fantasy 8’s own director, Yoshinori Kitase, is doubtful that the game would be well-received by a modern audience.
He mentioned that if asked to work on another numbered Final Fantasy game, he would refuse. Even if someone else led the development of Final Fantasy 8’s remakes, Kitase believes that significant changes would be necessary, particularly to its RPG mechanics. He acknowledged that the Junction system in Final Fantasy 8 was challenging for some players to grasp and emphasized the need for reworking the battle system to improve its balance of difficulty and approachability. While this approach may appeal to those who struggled with Final Fantasy 8, diehard fans are likely to be disappointed.
Nonetheless, interest in the game has resurfaced recently, with the protagonist of Final Fantasy 16, Ben Starr, expressing his love for FF8 at The Game Awards. However, any new projects related to Final Fantasy 8 are unlikely until the Final Fantasy 7 Remake series is concluded. The next installment, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, is set to release on February 29 exclusively for PlayStation 5, possibly with a PC port in the future.
