While Naoki Hamaguchi might already be quite busy in his role as director of Final Fantasy 7 Revelation, it turns out he has also been working to ensure that development on Kingdom Hearts 4 keeps going “forward”. In an interview with Deadline, Hamaguchi spoke about Square Enix’s broader plans for 2027, which involve making sure that Kingdom Hearts 4 and Final Fantasy 7 Revelation are both successful.
“In terms of Square Enix and 2027, our President, Takashi Kiryu, says that next year is the big fight back for us, where everything turns around. And obviously, between Final Fantasy 7 Revelation and Kingdom Hearts 4, those are massive titles that are going to push that. And both are being developed in my own studio, Creative Studio 1. So yeah, I’m really pumped up now for that. That’s really all on my watch now, so I’m going to be the guy who’s pushing all that forward.”
When asked about whether the Kingdom Hearts animated series for Disney+ could potentially lead to Square Enix working on more adaptations, Hamaguchi noted that the company is constantly on the lookout for which of its IPs can successfully make the transition. Whether this means that we’re getting an adaptation of Final Fantasy 7 anytime soon, however, remains to be seen.
“But in terms of adaptations, even a live-action adaptation or an animated adaptation, we’re always thinking that these properties, things like, again, Kingdom Hearts, Final Fantasy 7 … not just Final Fantasy 7, even just Remake. Across all of the Final Fantasy properties and IPs, we’re always looking for the best way to bring them to the audience and for opportunities like this with them. So yeah, it’s definitely a possibility. We want to be very proactive in looking into opportunities like that.”
Both Kingdom Hearts 4 and Final Fantasy 7 Revelation are being developed for PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch 2. While the former doesn’t quite have a solid release date aside from a 2027 launch window, the latter is confirmed to be coming out on April 8th.
Earlier this week, Hamaguchi had also spoken about how the team decided on the name Revelation for the third part of the Final Fantasy 7 Remake trilogy, and confirmed that, despite the concept of “resolve” playing a major role in the game’s core themes, it was never really considered for the title itself. Interestingly, he noted that the team used the Japanese word for “resolve” – “ketsui” – and that he only learned that it translated to “resolve” in English closer to the game’s official unveiling earlier this year.
“I can talk more about how we ended up with the title Revelation. So, way before this whole Resolve discussion that we had, we did decide to go with the title Revelation, but even before we made that decision, there were actually three final contenders, and I had a discussion with the creative director of the series, Tetsuya Nomura.”
As for Kingdom Hearts 4, the title recently got a trailer confirming that one of its Disney worlds will be the Land of the Dead from Coco. More details about it will be revealed as we get closer to its release.
