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[Draugoth]

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth's open world is apparently inspired by Final Fantasy 15, Horizon, and The Witcher 3.

At Paris Games Week 2023 earlier this month, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth co-director Naoki Hamaguchi fielded questions from French outlet FF Dream about the upcoming game. When asked about Rebirth's open world, Hamaguchi began by saying Final Fantasy 15 gave the development team experience needed to work on Rebirth's open world.

Additionally, Hamaguchi also pointed to The Witcher 3 and the Horizon series for touchstones for Rebirth's open world. The co-director doesn't specifically point to Horizon Forbidden West as an inspiration for Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, so don't automatically assume Square Enix is looking to the more recent of the two games for inspiration.

From the sounds of things, then, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is going to be a pretty huge game. Square Enix already revealed last month in October that it'll take around 40 hours to beat Rebirth, which already positions the new game as bigger than 2020's Remake, if you're going purely by the length of the main story and critical path.

 

[poodaddy]

Why are there two identical pics of Sephiroth that have nothing to do with open worlds in the OP?

 

[skit_data]

Personally I hope there's a lot more from Witcher 3 than from Horizon relatively.
Horizon is great in several aspects a but there's rarely a sense of discovery and stumbling into an adventure compared to Witcher 3.

 

[Punished Miku]

Seems appropriate to shoot for something similar to Horizon 1. Higher fidelity graphics, pseudo open world with some linear sections.

Why are there two identical pics of Sephiroth that have nothing to do with open worlds in the OP?

One is for Horizon, and the other is for Witcher 3. In this case the hand represents inspiration and he is looking at it.

duh

 

[Nankatsu]

Inspired by Witcher 3:

Inspired by Horizon:

 

[LakeOf9]

Oh man, in terms of actual open world design, Horizon and Witcher 3 are both pretty poor. That said they work well with more of a story focus, so I imagine that’s why they picked that style for FF7R too.

 

[Dazraell]

Why are there two identical pics of Sephiroth that have nothing to do with open worlds in the OP?

One Sephiroth for each part lol

 

[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

here's a couple of gifs showing some of the open areas.

 

[Northeastmonk]

Isn’t it inspired by the original open world? Back when Squaresoft inspired other developers.

 

[artsi]

Oh man, in terms of actual open world design, Horizon and Witcher 3 are both pretty poor. That said they work well with more of a story focus, so I imagine that’s why they picked that style for FF7R too.

What's wrong with Witcher 3 open world though, it's huge and has a ton of detail / variety?

 

[Buggy Loop]

Uh oh, I'm gonna have Witcher 3 PTSD

 

[Draugoth]

Why are there two identical pics of Sephiroth that have nothing to do with open worlds in the OP?

 

[Fake]

here's a couple of gifs showing some of the open areas.

I not seeing Horizon lol

 

[Deft Beck]

Why are there two identical pics of Sephiroth that have nothing to do with open worlds in the OP?

They represent the two alternate dimensions of the storyline.

 

[Punished Miku]

here's a couple of gifs showing some of the open areas.

They really didn't need to put arrows on that rock wall pointing up. But the game looks pretty impressive so far. Definitely the best FF team left at SQEX.

 

[Magic Carpet]

Flat and empty. Got it.

 

[TheInfamousKira]

Horizon inspiration is likely in reference to all the materials and collectible resources and shit. From the demo footage I've seen, there's lots of gathering and crafting.

 

[Fbh]

I hope that also means you'll be able to find worthwhile sidequests like in the Witcher 3 and they don't just mean the game will have a big area with question marks.