FF6 Remake in "Better Hands" Without Me, Says Hamaguchi

Ten years. That's roughly how long Naoki Hamaguchi has spent inside the Final Fantasy 7 Remake trilogy by the time Revelation ships next spring. So when fans flood his social media asking him to immediately pivot to remaking Final Fantasy 6, his answer shouldn't surprise anyone, even if the way he phrased it is unusually candid for a Square Enix director.

"I do see a lot of fans and community asking me to take on the helm for a FF6 remake," Hamaguchi told Game Informer, with Square Enix PR apparently stressing that any such project remains entirely hypothetical. "Personally, I think that it might be in better hands if it went to another creator in Square Enix." He doubled down on the point to Bloomberg, adding bluntly: "It's not going to be a remake!"

That last line is the one that sticks with me. Hamaguchi politely declining; he's actively steering expectations away from the idea that his team's next project will be another remake at all. After spending a decade rebuilding someone else's vision, even one as beloved as FF7, wanting to create something original makes complete sense. I'd argue it's the healthiest thing a director in his position could say.

What Comes After Revelation

Hamaguchi made it clear his immediate priority is finishing FF7 Revelation and delivering the trilogy's conclusion in what he called a "perfect state." But he was surprisingly open about what follows. "I do want to take on this new challenge with another RPG title after this, whether it be Final Fantasy or a different IP," he said. "If it's not Final Fantasy, that's also exciting, because that could be a challenge for me."

He's right that FF6 would be a brutal project for anyone. The game's cast is enormous compared to FF7's, with over a dozen playable characters who each get meaningful story arcs. Its world literally reshapes halfway through the game. Rebuilding that to modern AAA standards would arguably be a bigger undertaking than the FF7 trilogy, and that project already had to be split across three full-priced releases spanning nearly a decade of development.

Final Fantasy 6 currently sits at an 86 on OpenCritic for its Pixel Remaster version, a reminder that the original game's reputation hasn't faded. The demand for a full-scale remake is real, and it's only going to grow louder now that FF7's trilogy is wrapping up. But Hamaguchi handing that torch to someone else at Square Enix might actually be the best outcome for both projects. A fresh creative lead brings fresh instincts, and Hamaguchi gets to build something that's entirely his own. After a decade of living inside Midgar, the man has earned that.