{"id":52591,"date":"2025-10-02T00:01:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-01T15:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/?p=52591"},"modified":"2025-10-01T18:16:02","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T09:16:02","slug":"final-fantasy-vii-remake-director-says-the-key-to-a-good-looking-switch-2-port-is-not-compromising-on-lighting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/final-fantasy-vii-remake-director-says-the-key-to-a-good-looking-switch-2-port-is-not-compromising-on-lighting\/","title":{"rendered":"Final Fantasy VII Remake director says the key to a good-looking Switch 2 port is not compromising on lighting"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

With more than 5 years having passed since its initial release for the PlayStation 4 in 2020 and subsequent PlayStation 5 and Windows ports from the following year, Final Fantasy VII Remake<\/strong> is finally coming to Nintendo Switch 2 and Xbox Series X|S in 2026. AUTOMATON Japan recently talked to director Naoki Hamaguchi about the difficulties he and his team faced when porting the game to Switch 2, and what it took to get the game to run smoothly on the console. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Nintendo Switch 2 has great hardware specs,\u201d Hamaguchi comments. \u201cHowever, due to power consumption constraints, it’s designed to dial back performance a bit in handheld mode. So, since a straightforward port wouldn\u2019t be enough to make the game run stably in handheld mode, we had our talented rendering programmers put in extra work on optimization.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"FFVII<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In order to secure smooth performance, and above all, make the game look good according to modern standards even with reduced specs, FFVII Remake\u2019s dev team heavily prioritized lighting. \u201cI believe lighting is the crucial factor in terms of graphics quality and expression in this day and age,\u201d Hamaguchi says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although using approximations for lighting optimization would have been a shortcut, Hamaguchi says that this would have noticeably altered the appearance of characters\u2019 expressions \u2013 making the game feel \u201ccheap\u201d overall. In order to avoid this during porting for the Switch 2, the devs made sure to keep lighting rendered in essentially the same way as the original. Instead, they reduced processing load in other areas, like post-effects and fog. Thanks to this, the development team managed to achieve a port that runs stably even at 30fps, without compromising on quality. \u201cI\u2019m extremely happy that we kind of managed to become a model case of a high-end game being ported for the Nintendo Switch 2,\u201d Hamaguchi comments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"FFVII<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Despite the challenges, the director praised the console for packing a lot of memory, which makes the porting process very straightforward when it comes to docked mode. While things do get a bit trickier in handheld mode, Hamaguchi seems very pleased with the Switch 2. \u201cIn our experience, if you just use the hardware properly, you\u2019ll be able to deliver games at the quality players expect. All in all, my honest opinion is that Nintendo Switch 2 is a truly amazing piece of hardware.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Related articles:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Final Fantasy 7 Remake director understands qualms about Switch 2 Game-Key Cards, but for AAA devs, they\u2019re a way to overcome loading speed limitations
<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth\u2019s director Hamaguchi stresses a \u201clogic-based\u201d approach when incorporating user feedback to make sure a game sticks to its original vision\u00a0
<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Final Fantasy VII remake director Naoki Hamaguchi talks about the challenges he and his team faced porting the game to Switch 2. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":79,"featured_media":52592,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gspb_post_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10,3],"tags":[36,17],"class_list":["post-52591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interviews","category-news","tag-final-fantasy","tag-japan-related-news"],"blocksy_meta":[],"yoast_head":"\nFinal Fantasy VII Remake director says the key to a good-looking Switch 2 port is not compromising on lighting - AUTOMATON WEST<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Final Fantasy VII remake director Naoki Hamaguchi talks about the challenges he and his team faced porting the game to Switch 2.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/final-fantasy-vii-remake-director-says-the-key-to-a-good-looking-switch-2-port-is-not-compromising-on-lighting\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Final Fantasy VII Remake director says the key to a good-looking Switch 2 port is not compromising on lighting - 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