We’ve gotten some more details regarding the recently announced Final Fantasy VII remake, on Playstation 4.

We’ve learned that not only has the remake been in development for at least a year, it seems putting the game on Playstation 4 was a bigger choice than we previously expected. Project director Tetsuya Nomura talked up the game during a round table interview at E3 (via Eurogamer).

“When we announced the HD port, the PC port on the PS4, we weren’t sure when we wanted to announce the remake,” Nomura said. “The production was underway then, so there’s no real connection between the timing of the two Final Fantasy VIIs coming to PS4. We’ve announced several different titles coming to the PlayStation 4 like World of Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts III.”

Nomura revealed that Square Enix is hoping the remake will spur further adopting of the Playstation 4 in Japan.

“There’s more and more titles being introduced for the platform, and we’re hoping that announcing the remake of Final Fantasy VII, it’ll give a boost to people wanting to buy this current generation of console,” Nomura said. “If we announced the remake after all those titles have been sold, it wouldn’t have created such an impact, so that’s why we decided on this timing. We wanted to reassure players that PlayStation 4 is coming out with great titles including Final Fantasy VII. That’s why we decided to announce the remake.”

The question regarding the remake taking so many years to be considered or announced came up, to which Nomura explained:

“The talks about making this remake, internally it’s been mentioned on and off. Sometimes we think we can do it, and then sometimes we think maybe we can’t. Considering some of the original staff, like Kitase, he’s acting as producer, and [Kazushige] Nojima, he’s doing the script – we’re all getting older! If we keep going like this, the thought occurred to us that we might have to pass this on to a younger generation, without the original developers taking part. It doesn’t seem like such a grand intention, but we wanted to do it with the original members.”

While the teaser trailer (which you can view here) had a more darker feel to it, fans can be rest assured the game will still have some of its iconic and yet silly moments, like when Cloud has to cross-dress as a woman. “Please look forward to it,” Nomura said when asked about the cross-dressing scene.

However, Nomura revealed another bit of information that if true, could upset many die-hard fans that simply want an “HD version” of Final Fantasy VII.

When speaking to Gamespot, Nomura was asked if the game will follow the original Final Fantasy VII narrative exactly, or if it will include new elements. Nomura gave a nebulous response:

“We’ve announced an HD port version on the PlayStation 4, and then we have the remake coming to PS4,” Nomura said. “You’ll have this extremely, very, very pretty FFVII existing on the same plane. We feel that if that happens, it’s like, why have the same exact game?

“We think that if a game is on a certain platform and that platform becomes obsolete, then we’d recommend playing the new port version,” he said.

So, for now it’s unclear what the exact nature of this remake will be like. Final Fantasy VII is quite a large game, so maybe Square Enix might overlook certain portions of the game, or change the story up entirely?

Would you prefer to see Final Fantasy VII unchanged, in HD?