We don’t know much about the still-mysterious final chapter of Square Enix’s Final Fantasy 7 remake trilogy, but director Naoki Hamaguchi shed more light on what players can expect from the in-development RPG. In an interview with Polygon, Hamaguchi confirmed that the sequel will still have an emphasis on minigames, reaffirming that Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth‘s popular Queen’s Blood will return in the trilogy’s third installment and teasing how the team is approaching the original Final Fantasy 7‘s famous snowboarding minigame.
Polygon spoke with Hamaguchi at Nintendo’s New York City store to discuss the release of Final Fantasy 7 Remake Intergrade on Nintendo Switch 2 and Xbox Series X. Speaking about how development is progressing on the remake trilogy’s currently unnamed next game, Hamaguchi expanded on a previous confirmation that Queen’s Blood — a fan-favorite minigame in which players collect cards and build decks for use in tactical-grid battles — will return for the third part.
“Queen’s Blood is a very popular and beloved minigame, and I believe a lot of people are still wanting something like that,” Hamaguchi told Polygon. “I want to expand on Queen’s Blood so that we are enhancing it, and giving you a more powered-up version of it when you see that third installment… Queen’s Blood is still going to be available in the third installment. We just want to expand on it.”
Aside from Queen’s Blood, Hamaguchi stressed that minigames will still be a big part of the third installment. That includes doing justice to the original Final Fantasy 7’s snowboarding minigame, which occurs after the events covered in Rebirth. In the original version, players have to guide Cloud to the Great Glacier in a downhill snowboarding minigame where he must dodge snowmen and trees.
“Snowboarding! This is something that fans have really deep memories about!” Hamaguchi said. “I’m afraid I can’t delve too much into the details, but we understand that it’s not going to be just a simple snowboarding minigame. We want to make sure that it’s incorporated into the story to have that sort of connection with the theming of it.”
While Hamaguchi didn’t spill any more details about the next game, he did provide Polygon with an update about how far along its development cycle is. The project might be further along than fans are expecting, considering that Rebirth launched on PlayStation 5 just two years ago.
“In terms of the third installment, I believe we are coming along very smoothly,” Hamaguchi said. “We have set a schedule for ourselves, and I believe we are tracking on time for the milestones we have set. So I’m really thankful for the development team and I have so much respect for them working on this project. I believe that at this point the game is playable, technically, but we are still trying to polish it so it is at a quality where we can deliver it to our players.”
Final Fantasy 7 Remake Intergrade is now available on Nintendo Switch 2 and Xbox Series X. A port of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is currently in development for both platforms.
