Final Fantasy 7 has always been a political story, regardless of what gamers on the internet would like to tell you. It’s a statement on how lofty corporations can destroy the world if left untouched, leaving an unimaginable display of environmental destruction in their wake.
Cloud, Barrett, Aerith, Tifa, and company strive to fight against this image, to represent those in the real world who wish to rebel against those who want to doom our planet to ruin. We recently had a chance to catch up with Final Fantasy 7 Remake producer Yoshinori Kitase to talk about the political themes of this universe, and whether they have a bearing on reality.
“We created a story based in a fantasy world, with fantastical concepts like Shinra and Mako etc. but these are deliberately made abstract enough that they can be superimposed and compared to things in the real world,” Kitase-san explains. “The environment and the way people think has changed a lot between 1997 and 2021, but the idea of the “life of the planet” can be seen as a timeless issue, regardless of the era we find ourselves in. I hope that each player can face and come to terms with the issues facing them through the story of Final Fantasy 7.”
Even back in 1997, the fear of global warming and overbearing companies were present, and it seems Square Enix wanted to tap into these ideas with an ambitious fantasy world that distinguished itself from our planet while also drawing notable comparisons to it. We’ve written about the politics of Final Fantasy 7 Remake again and again, and it’s cool to see Kitase-san engage with it so candidly.
In our interview with the senior team, co-director Motomu Toriyama also touched on how Final Fantasy 7 Remake hoped to embrace LGBTQ identities, while also ensuring it was respectful to modern sensibilities. “I think that expressing diversity with LGBTQ inclusion is an important issue for everyone involved in making content, not just people making games,” Toriyama-san explains. “In Final Fantasy 7 Remake, we rebuilt the original game using the latest technology, but we felt that it should not stop at the technical side and we needed to update the story content being shown in line with modern sensibilities.”