FF7 Revelation: ‘Revelation’ Beat Two Other Finalists, Says Director Hamaguchi
There were three names on the shortlist for the last game in the Final Fantasy VII Remake trilogy, and ‘Revelation’ beat the other two. Director Naoki Hamaguchi confirmed the detail in a new interview with IGN, adding that he isn’t ready to say what the runners-up were.
Hamaguchi told IGN that before the team settled on Revelation, there were actually three final contenders, and he had a discussion with the creative director of the series, Tetsuya Nomura. He’s keeping the other two under wraps for now, and honestly, that’s the right call.
Fans have wasted no time arguing over what the other two contenders might have been, and whether Square Enix picked the strongest option:
Why ‘Resolve’ Was Never Actually a Finalist
The bigger surprise buried in the interview is what didn’t make the list. Plenty of fans assumed ‘Resolve’ had been in the running at some point, given how often Hamaguchi has talked about resolve as a theme of the finale. He shut that down directly.
The team did think about the term “resolve” during development, but in Japanese it’s “ketsui,” which Hamaguchi said “doesn’t have that RE sound.” That’s a small detail, but it matters. Remake, Rebirth and now Revelation all lean on that RE- prefix as a kind of visual and verbal thread through the trilogy, and Hamaguchi is clearly protective of it.
The word resolve only lined up with that RE- pattern in English by coincidence, once Hamaguchi was writing his own script for the Summer Game Fest reveal. By that point, the title Revelation had already been locked in.
Why He’s Not Naming the Other Two Titles Yet
Hamaguchi was upfront about why he’s holding the other two names back, and it’s not just coyness for its own sake. He said if he shared the other two contenders now, he doesn’t want people saying the other one was better than Revelation, and worried it would just stir up arguments online before the game’s even out.
Our take: that’s fair. FF7 fans will turn any scrap of information into a week-long debate, and a title that never made the cut has zero context behind it. Drop two alternate names into a fandom this size with no explanation and you get discourse for its own sake, not insight.
Hamaguchi said the game hasn’t launched yet and feels “now’s not the right time,” warning that surfacing the alternates would “create some unnecessary discussion and debates online.” He didn’t rule out sharing them once Revelation is actually out.
How the Trilogy’s Titles Have Worked So Far
Naming has been a running story for this trilogy well before this latest interview. Back in December 2025, Hamaguchi and Nomura had already said the choice was down to two options, with a decision expected within the year. That process clearly continued past the point most fans assumed it had wrapped up, given a third option was apparently still in the mix close to the reveal.
The reveal itself happened at Summer Game Fest in June, where Square Enix confirmed the game as Final Fantasy VII Revelation and set it for release across PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S and Nintendo Switch 2. According to an earlier Game Informer interview around that same event, only five or six people on the entire development team knew the title before the stage reveal, with most of the crew finding out at the same moment as the public.
That level of secrecy tracks with how Square Enix has handled this trilogy generally. Remake and Rebirth both kept plot specifics locked down tight ahead of launch, and Revelation looks to be getting the same treatment on names as well as story beats.
What’s Confirmed for Final Fantasy VII Revelation’s Launch
Final Fantasy VII Revelation is set to release on April 8, 2027, closing out the remake trilogy that began with Remake in 2020 and continued through Rebirth in 2024. It’s the first entry in the series to launch day one across PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and Nintendo Switch 2, rather than debuting as a PlayStation exclusive first.
If you’ve been following this trilogy since 2020, the title reveal drama is basically part of the ritual at this point. Remake’s subtitle got picked apart for years before launch, Rebirth had its own round of guessing, and now Revelation gets the same treatment, right down to two mystery names nobody outside Square Enix has heard yet.
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