Interview: Naoki Hamaguchi on the FFXIV FFVII Beyond the Lifestream Raid Series
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TAME OTONITY – One of the major announcements to come out of the 2026 Final Fantasy XIV Fan Festival events was a series of FFVII Remake raids called “Beyond the Lifestream” for FFXIV’s “Evercold” expansion.
In addition to the MMORPG’s director and producer, Naoki Yoshida, and his team—who are working on it—the team behind the FFVII Remake trilogy and its director, Naoki Hamaguchi, are also involved in its development. Siliconera had the opportunity to speak with Hamaguchi about the development of the raid series, the upcoming crossover, and which characters from the remake trilogy he’d like to see as potential Triple Triad cards.
Jenni Lada: When did work begin on FFXIV’s “Beyond the Lifestream” raid series based on FFVII, and how many members of the remake team have been collaborating with the MMORPG’s developers?
Naoki Hamaguchi: I think it started about a year ago. When Yoshida-san and I were discussing the release dates for our respective titles, we came up with the idea of collaborating to build excitement around the entire Final Fantasy franchise together, rather than releasing each title separately. That’s where it all began.
From there, the two teams worked out the details, and the cross-over content gradually took shape. I can’t reveal the exact numbers, but there are a huge number of team members contributing to the project if we include everyone working on the script, art design, various assets, and world-building supervision.
The FFVII team isn’t just overseeing the project; rather, it’s a project in which both teams are combining their respective strengths to create something as a single entity.
