Final Fantasy VII Remake series director Naoki Hamaguchi says returning to Nintendo hardware with the Final Fantasy VII Remake trilogy “kind of feels like fate,” according to a report published September 13, 2026 by My Nintendo News and corroborated by Nintendo Everything’s ongoing coverage of the trilogy’s Switch 2 rollout. The remark lands nearly eight months after Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade launched on Nintendo Switch 2, and roughly nine months before the trilogy’s finale, Final Fantasy VII Revelation, is due to close out a story that began on Nintendo’s own SNES hardware three decades ago.
The comment is small, almost offhand. But it caps a two-year arc in which Square Enix quietly walked one of gaming’s most famous platform breakups back toward reconciliation. Final Fantasy VII was the game that, in 1997, symbolized the mainline series’ departure from Nintendo consoles in favor of Sony’s PlayStation and its CD-based storage. Nearly 30 years later, the remake of that same game is running on a Nintendo handheld, and the man directing it says it feels less like a coincidence than an inevitability.
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What Naoki Hamaguchi Actually Said About Switch 2
According to My Nintendo News, Hamaguchi’s latest comments touch on both the emotional weight of the Switch 2 release and how the Nintendo Switch 2 versions of Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade have been selling. The director has made similar points in prior interviews conducted around the Switch 2 launch window. In a Nintendo-published interview tied to the Intergrade release, Hamaguchi described the moment the game first ran on the new hardware: “The first thing – and maybe this comes from my place as a gamer and a fan – was that it was really touching to see the game running beautifully on Nintendo Switch 2 for the first time,” he told Nintendo’s official interview series.
He also spoke to the surprise of seeing a PlayStation-born action RPG run in handheld form. “When we saw the game running in handheld mode, just looking at that and how it changed the gaming experience was actually quite surprising,” Hamaguchi said in the same Nintendo interview. That surprise, by his account, was matched by a personal habit: “I almost always carry my Nintendo Switch 2 in my bag wherever I go,” he added, a detail that reads less like marketing copy and more like a developer describing his own machine.
Those quotes, paired with the newer “feels like fate” framing reported by My Nintendo News, point to a consistent message from Hamaguchi across nearly a year of press: bringing Final Fantasy VII back to Nintendo hardware isn’t a contractual afterthought for him. It’s personal.
Why This Story Matters Right Now
Timing explains why this is trending. Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade has been available on Nintendo Switch 2 since January 22, 2026, when Nintendo priced the port at $69.99 and Square Enix sweetened the launch by bundling the original 1997 Final Fantasy VII free with eligible digital preorders through January 31, 2026, giving Square Enix and Nintendo more than half a year of sales and engagement data to reference. Hamaguchi’s newest remarks reportedly touch on how those Switch 2 sales have performed, per My Nintendo News, which places this story squarely at the intersection of two ongoing narratives: Switch 2’s push to attract mature, third-party blockbusters, and Square Enix’s multi-year bet that spreading the Final Fantasy VII Remake trilogy across every major platform (rather than keeping it a PlayStation exclusive) will maximize its return on one of the most expensive game projects in the company’s history.
It also matters because Final Fantasy VII Revelation, the third and final chapter of the remake trilogy, is scheduled to arrive on all major platforms simultaneously, including Switch 2, in the first half of 2027, according to Hamaguchi’s announcement at Summer Game Fest 2026 as reported by Game Informer. That means the “fate” comment isn’t a retrospective victory lap. It’s a signal of intent going into the trilogy’s biggest and most technically demanding entry yet.
From N64 Rumors to a PlayStation Icon: The Original Break With Nintendo
The “departure from Nintendo hardware” framing that Hamaguchi and his colleagues keep returning to isn’t hyperbole. Final Fantasy built its identity on Nintendo consoles through the NES and Super Nintendo eras, and Square was widely reported at the time to have explored the Nintendo 64 as a home for its next mainline entry before ultimately moving Final Fantasy VII to Sony’s PlayStation, a decision commonly attributed to the format war between N64 cartridges and PlayStation’s CD-ROM discs. Whatever the exact internal calculus, the outcome reshaped the console business: Final Fantasy VII is still widely credited with helping establish PlayStation as a serious home for Japanese role-playing games, at Nintendo’s expense.
That history is precisely why current interviews keep circling back to the word “symbolic.” A separate director’s interview about bringing Final Fantasy VII Rebirth to Switch 2 put it directly, describing the original FFVII as “the title that symbolized the franchise’s departure from Nintendo hardware,” and framing the Switch 2 releases of Remake and Rebirth as carrying “a very special emotional weight” for the development team, according to reporting on that interview. Hamaguchi’s own comments to Game Rant at Gamescom 2026 echo the same idea from a different angle, noting that FFVII’s arrival on PlayStation marked the first numbered Final Fantasy to move away from Nintendo hardware.
A Trilogy Built to Go Everywhere
Unlike the original 1997 release, which stayed a PlayStation exclusive for years, the remake trilogy was always going to expand beyond Sony hardware eventually. Final Fantasy VII Remake first launched on PlayStation 4 in 2020 as a timed console exclusive, with the enhanced Intergrade version arriving on PlayStation 5 in 2021. The move to PC, Xbox Series X|S, and now Nintendo Switch 2 has unfolded gradually since, turning what began as a Sony showcase title into a genuinely multiplatform trilogy by the time Revelation ships.
Inside the Remake Trilogy: Intergrade, Rebirth, and Revelation
Square Enix’s remake project splits the original Final Fantasy VII into three full-sized games. Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade, described in Nintendo’s own materials as “the first entry in Square Enix’s Final Fantasy VII remake trilogy project,” is the version now running on Switch 2. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, the middle chapter, followed Remake Intergrade onto the platform when Nintendo published its Switch 2 release date as June 3, 2026, after Square Enix had opened Switch 2 digital preorders at a 20% discount that February on the back of a director’s interview describing demand as “going extremely well.” Final Fantasy VII Revelation will close out the story and, per Hamaguchi’s Summer Game Fest 2026 announcement, will be the first entry in the trilogy to launch on every major platform on the same day.
Hamaguchi has described the Revelation launch in especially personal terms. Speaking with Game Rant at Gamescom 2026 about closing out what he called a roughly 10-year journey on the remake project, he discussed the burden and responsibility of delivering a finale that satisfies a fanbase that has waited decades for this story to conclude. That interview also touched on designing Revelation for very different kinds of players across very different hardware, from docked TV setups to Switch 2’s handheld mode.
| Trilogy Entry | PlayStation | Xbox Series X|S | Nintendo Switch 2 | Status (as of Sept. 13, 2026) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Final Fantasy VII Remake / Intergrade | PS4 (2020), PS5 Intergrade (2021) | Jan. 22, 2026 | Jan. 22, 2026 | Available on all platforms |
| Final Fantasy VII Rebirth | PS5 (Feb. 2024) | Announced | June 3, 2026 | Available on Switch 2; 125+ perfect scores, ~40 GOTY awards |
| Final Fantasy VII Revelation | Simultaneous launch planned | Simultaneous launch planned | Simultaneous launch planned | Targeting first half of 2027 |
The simultaneous-launch plan for Revelation is itself notable. Remake and Intergrade both staggered their platform rollouts by months or years; Revelation collapsing that gap to zero suggests Square Enix now treats Switch 2, Xbox, and PlayStation as day-one priorities rather than a PlayStation title with delayed ports.
Switch 2 Performance: How Hamaguchi’s Team Solved the Hardware Puzzle
Porting a PlayStation 5-built action RPG to a hybrid handheld was never going to be simple, and Hamaguchi has been candid about the technical tradeoffs involved. Speaking to Nintendo directly about the Switch 2 version, he framed the team’s goal in concrete terms: “Our specific strategy was to make sure the Nintendo Switch 2 version of Final Fantasy VII Remake would stand up to all the other hardware platforms, even in handheld mode with a really solid, stable frame rate,” he told Nintendo’s interview team.
That framing matters because handheld mode is where hybrid consoles typically struggle most against dedicated home consoles. Rather than treating Switch 2 as a scaled-down afterthought, Hamaguchi’s comments suggest the studio benchmarked the handheld experience against PS5 and Xbox Series X output directly, an unusually high bar for a third-party AAA port to a Nintendo platform.
Following the January 2026 launch, Polygon reported that Hamaguchi discussed the difficulty of porting the game to what he called “lower-end” Switch 2 hardware relative to PS5, while also describing the release as a “significant occasion for the franchise” and a homecoming for the series. That characterization is consistent with Hamaguchi’s broader message: the Switch 2 version required real engineering compromise, but the team treated meeting that bar as a priority rather than a box to check.
Sales and Pre-Order Signals: How the Switch 2 Versions Are Performing
My Nintendo News’ September 13 report specifically frames Hamaguchi’s comments around how the Switch 2 versions have been selling, though the outlet’s report does not attach a precise sales figure to the Switch 2 SKU in isolation. What is on record is softer but directionally clear: pre-orders for the Remake and Rebirth Switch 2 releases were described as “going extremely well” in a director interview tied to the Rebirth announcement, and by the time Rebirth actually reached Switch 2 on June 3, 2026, following that 20%-discounted preorder push, Square Enix was promoting a game that had already earned more than 125 perfect critic scores and roughly 40 Game of the Year awards. Square Enix has continued to support the Switch 2 versions with promotional interviews and press appearances well past launch, a pattern the company typically reserves for titles it considers commercially successful rather than underperforming ports.
Nintendo Switch 2 itself has been the fastest-selling console in Nintendo’s history by unit count, a backdrop that gives any single third-party AAA release on the platform a larger addressable audience than any prior Nintendo handheld. For a mature-rated, PlayStation-born franchise like Final Fantasy VII, that audience size is precisely the argument Square Enix has been making internally for years about why multiplatform releases outperform staying exclusive.
Competitive Landscape: Switch 2 vs. Xbox Series S as a Third-Party Porting Target
One of the more surprising technical claims to come out of the Switch 2 port process is how it compared to the Xbox Series S version of the same game. In an interview about the trilogy’s optimization work, Hamaguchi indicated that adapting Final Fantasy VII Remake for Nintendo Switch 2 was, in some respects, an easier engineering problem than accommodating Xbox Series S, largely because of memory constraints on Microsoft’s lower-cost console, even as he continued to describe Series S as a capable, high-spec machine in its own right. That comparison inverts the usual assumption that a hybrid handheld is automatically the harder target for a AAA PlayStation port; in this case, Series S’s memory budget was reportedly the tighter constraint.
| Factor | Nintendo Switch 2 | Xbox Series S |
|---|---|---|
| Hamaguchi’s stated relative porting difficulty | Comparatively more manageable, per his comments | Tighter memory constraints cited as the bigger challenge |
| FFVII Remake Intergrade release date | Jan. 22, 2026 | Jan. 22, 2026 (simultaneous) |
| Positioning | Framed by Square Enix as a homecoming release | Framed as a standard multiplatform expansion |
| Handheld mode benchmark target | Matched against PS5/Xbox Series X output, per Hamaguchi | Not applicable (no handheld mode) |
The practical upshot is that Switch 2 has, at least for this project, avoided the “watered-down port” reputation that has followed some third-party Nintendo releases in the past. That reputation matters enormously for whether other AAA publishers treat Switch 2 as a first-class target or a lower priority.
Market Impact: What This Means for Square Enix and Nintendo
For Square Enix, the Switch 2 rollout of the Final Fantasy VII Remake trilogy functions as a proof point for a strategy the publisher has pursued more aggressively since the mid-2020s: treat Final Fantasy as a franchise that lives everywhere, rather than tying its most valuable IP to a single console maker. That approach carries real financial logic. Every additional platform is incremental revenue on assets Square Enix has already built, and Nintendo Switch 2’s install base gives the company access to a demographic, including younger and more casual players, that historically skewed away from PlayStation-exclusive RPGs.
For Nintendo, landing the full Final Fantasy VII Remake trilogy, including a day-one simultaneous release for Revelation, is a meaningful signal to other third-party publishers still deciding how seriously to support Switch 2 with top-tier, mature-rated releases. Nintendo has spent years courting exactly this kind of software: big-budget, adult-skewing, PlayStation-associated franchises that prove Switch hardware can run modern AAA engines without becoming a second-class version of the game. A high-profile director publicly calling the relationship “fate” is, whether intentional or not, a marketing asset Nintendo did not have to pay for.
Historical Context: Final Fantasy’s On-Again, Off-Again Relationship With Nintendo
It’s worth remembering that Final Fantasy VII leaving Nintendo wasn’t the end of the franchise’s Nintendo ties, just a long interruption. Nintendo handhelds and consoles have hosted numerous Final Fantasy spinoffs, remasters, and mainline entries in the decades since, and Square Enix has periodically brought remastered classics back to Nintendo systems. What makes the current moment different is scope and prestige: this isn’t a remaster or a spinoff, it’s the flagship remake of the single game most associated with Final Fantasy’s original move away from Nintendo, arriving on Nintendo’s newest console within the same generation it launched.
That symbolism is exactly why multiple people connected to the project, not just Hamaguchi, keep reaching for words like “fate,” “full circle,” and “homecoming” in interviews. It’s rare for a single announcement to double as historical closure on a three-decade-old console rivalry narrative, and Square Enix’s messaging has leaned into that framing deliberately across nearly every Switch 2-focused interview since the Intergrade launch.
Expert Voices: What Hamaguchi Has Said in His Own Words
Beyond the “feels like fate” framing reported by My Nintendo News, Hamaguchi has used several interviews to explain his own reasoning for prioritizing Switch 2 as a platform. Discussing the broader logic of bringing Final Fantasy VII to as many players as possible, he told RPG Site: “As a creator, I do think being able to bring the game to a much wider and broader audience without the obstacles or confinement of hardware is a very positive and wonderful thing.”
That comment, paired with his remarks to Nintendo about handheld performance and his personal habit of carrying a Switch 2 everywhere, paints a consistent picture across sources: Hamaguchi frames the Switch 2 release less as a business obligation and more as an extension of his own relationship with Nintendo hardware as a player. His Gamescom 2026 interview with Game Rant reinforced that personal angle, with Hamaguchi describing a decade-long attachment to closing out the remake trilogy the right way, even as he acknowledged the pressure of finishing a story this many fans have followed since 1997.
Predictions: Where the FFVII-Nintendo Relationship Goes From Here
- Revelation will anchor Switch 2’s 2027 third-party lineup. A simultaneous-day-one release across PlayStation, Xbox, and Switch 2 makes Revelation one of the highest-profile multiplatform launches Nintendo has hosted, and expect Nintendo marketing to lean heavily on it in the run-up to release.
- Expect more “homecoming” messaging as Revelation nears. Square Enix has consistently used emotional, historical framing around this trilogy’s Nintendo releases, and that messaging will likely intensify as the 2027 launch window approaches.
- Other Square Enix franchises will test Switch 2 as a lead platform, not just a port target. A successful Revelation launch strengthens the case for future Square Enix mainline releases treating Switch 2 as a day-one platform rather than a delayed add-on.
- Hamaguchi’s team will keep emphasizing handheld parity as a selling point. With Switch 2 handheld performance already benchmarked against PS5 and Xbox Series X output for Remake, expect the same standard, and the same talking points, applied to Rebirth and Revelation.
- Rebirth’s exact Switch 2 release date is likely to be confirmed within the next few months. With pre-orders already open and described as strong, a firm date announcement is a logical next step before Revelation’s 2027 window arrives.
What Comes Next: Revelation and the Trilogy’s Final Chapter
All roads in this story lead to Final Fantasy VII Revelation. Announced by Hamaguchi at Summer Game Fest 2026 as the third and final part of the remake trilogy, Revelation is set to launch simultaneously across all major platforms, including Nintendo Switch 2, in the first half of 2027, per Game Informer’s reporting on the announcement. Hamaguchi has called the multiplatform, day-one approach a meaningful full-circle moment, not just for himself but for original Final Fantasy VII creators Yoshinori Kitase and Tetsuya Nomura, both of whom built their early careers on Nintendo platforms before the series moved to PlayStation.
In his Gamescom 2026 conversation with Game Rant, Hamaguchi described the responsibility of closing out roughly a decade of work on the remake project, framing it as both a burden and something he is glad to carry. That combination of pressure and sentimentality is likely to define Square Enix’s messaging around Revelation for the rest of 2026 and into its 2027 launch window, with Switch 2 treated not as an afterthought platform but as one of three equal launch pillars.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who said Final Fantasy VII’s return to Nintendo hardware “feels like fate”?
Naoki Hamaguchi, director of the Final Fantasy VII Remake trilogy, made the comment as reported by My Nintendo News on September 13, 2026, in remarks discussing the Nintendo Switch 2 versions of the game and how they have been selling.
Is Final Fantasy VII Remake available on Nintendo Switch 2?
Yes. Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade launched on Nintendo Switch 2 alongside Xbox Series X|S on January 22, 2026, according to Nintendo’s official interview materials with Hamaguchi.
Is Final Fantasy VII Rebirth coming to Nintendo Switch 2?
Yes. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth launched on Nintendo Switch 2 on June 3, 2026, the release date Nintendo published after Square Enix opened digital preorders at a 20% discount that February on the strength of demand a director interview had described as “going extremely well.”
When does Final Fantasy VII Revelation release?
Final Fantasy VII Revelation, the third and final entry in the remake trilogy, is targeting a simultaneous launch across all major platforms, including Nintendo Switch 2, in the first half of 2027, according to Hamaguchi’s Summer Game Fest 2026 announcement as reported by Game Informer.
Why did the original Final Fantasy VII leave Nintendo for PlayStation?
Final Fantasy VII’s 1997 move to PlayStation is widely attributed to the format shift from Nintendo 64 cartridges to PlayStation’s CD-ROM discs, which better suited the scale of the game Square wanted to build. The move is commonly cited as a turning point that helped establish PlayStation as a leading platform for Japanese role-playing games.
Was the Switch 2 version harder to build than the Xbox Series S version?
According to comments from Hamaguchi, optimizing Final Fantasy VII Remake for Nintendo Switch 2 was, in some respects, more manageable than adapting it for Xbox Series S, which he said presented tighter memory constraints, even though he continued to describe Series S as a capable machine.
Who directs the Final Fantasy VII Remake trilogy?
Naoki Hamaguchi is the director of the Final Fantasy VII Remake trilogy, encompassing Final Fantasy VII Remake/Intergrade, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, and the upcoming Final Fantasy VII Revelation. Yoshinori Kitase, director and producer on the original 1997 release, and Tetsuya Nomura, the franchise’s longtime character designer and creative lead, remain closely involved with the remake project.
