Interview: Naoki Hamaguchi on the FFXIV FFVII Beyond the Lifestream Raid Series
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To what extent exactly are you involved in the process, and in what areas can you contribute? Will you be working on the narrative and making suggestions about the final bosses, or will you also be able to get more involved in hidden references and detailed decisions about costumes?
Naoki Hamaguchi: As the FFVII team, we contribute to a wide variety of areas: the script, characters, world-building, and art design, in addition to providing and overseeing various resources.
[Motomu] Toriyama-san and the FFXIV writing team have been the central figures in planning the story, while Nojima-san oversees the story as a whole and [Tetsuya] Nomura-san oversees the character designs. We also maintain ongoing discussions with the FFXIV team regarding various aspects of development, including final bosses, visual presentation, and background details.
Our role isn’t simply to oversee and point out what’s right or wrong. In many cases, the FFXIV team shared their ideas, and we joined forces to figure out how they might fit into the context of FFVII. That’s why I think the term “co-production” better describes our team’s role than “oversight.”
This was also very important when we were brainstorming ideas for this raid series. Our goal wasn’t simply to incorporate elements from FFVII just for the sake of it; rather, we wanted to offer an experience that would allow FFXIV players to appreciate why FFVII has been so beloved for so many years. It’s thanks to all the FFVII-related content that was already in the game that we were able to take this crossover a step further.
The funny thing is that, every time we try to do something with FFVII, both the creators and the fans naturally end up taking it very seriously (laughs). Maybe that’s one of the charms of the FFVII franchise.
