Final Fantasy VII Remake’s third and final entry will also run on Unreal Engine 4, and while some immediately worried it would feel less advanced than Unreal Engine 5 titles, director Naoki Hamaguchi argues the opposite: not switching engines mid-trilogy is exactly what should improve the game.
Like the first two installments, the third part of the Final Fantasy VII Remake project will be built on Unreal Engine 4. The decision is not shocking, especially if the goal is to ship the finale on a realistic timeline, but it still sparked disappointment in some corners. The concern is straightforward: if more and more big games are built on Unreal Engine 5, does sticking with Unreal Engine 4 risk leaving the last chapter feeling behind the curve?
Naoki Hamaguchi says that is not how it plays out. Speaking to Automaton, he addressed why confirming Unreal Engine 4 became such a hot topic, and why he believes the third entry will be better precisely because it remains on the same foundation. In his view, most people do not actually know what the practical differences between Unreal Engine 4 and Unreal Engine 5 mean for a project already deep into production.
Hamaguchi pointed out that when development on Final Fantasy VII Rebirth began, Unreal Engine 5 was still in its pre-launch phase. He framed Unreal Engine 5 as a major step up from Unreal Engine 4 largely because of two flagship features that dominate the conversation: Lumen, its lighting system, and Nanite, which enables extremely dense geometric detail. Even so, the team decided early in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth’s development to stay on Unreal Engine 4.
“Most people aren’t familiar with the differences between Unreal Engine 4 and Unreal Engine 5. Around the time we began developing Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, Unreal Engine 5 was just entering its pre-launch phase. Two features make Unreal Engine 5 groundbreaking compared to Unreal Engine 4: Lumen, its lighting system, and Nanite, which allows for the portrayal of dense graphical detail. Early on in the development of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, we decided to stick with Unreal Engine 4. We’re using an in-house graphics pipeline, which makes optimization and porting to various hardware more straightforward. Rather than rebuilding our pipeline from scratch in Unreal Engine 5, it’s far more efficient for us to use Unreal Engine 4. Considering all this, we concluded that continuing with Unreal Engine 4 would result in a better third installment for our customers.”
The core of his argument is that this is not about clinging to “older tech,” but about development efficiency and risk control. The team already has an internal rendering pipeline built and tuned around Unreal Engine 4, which makes optimization work and platform porting more direct. A switch to Unreal Engine 5 would mean rebuilding that pipeline, which would tie progress to a new set of technical unknowns and could endanger the schedule.
That logic also matches how the trilogy has been structured so far. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth carried forward a large share of its predecessor’s visual and gameplay baseline, which let the team focus on expanding content and refining systems rather than reinventing core technology. Keeping the same approach for part three signals the same priority: stability, iteration, and controlled complexity over an engine transition.
The experience gained on Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is also expected to help with future versions, including Nintendo Switch 2 and Xbox Series S builds that aim for 30 FPS where possible. What matters, Hamaguchi’s message implies, is not the engine label itself, but what the team can reliably deliver with a pipeline it already understands end to end.
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