Final Fantasy VIII dev looks back on the freedom the team had to make changes, discusses the chance of a remake

Final Fantasy VIII is celebrating its 20th anniversary, which is why Famitsu reached out to Square-Enix's Yoshinori Kitase to talk about the game. In a snippet from the interview, Kitase opens up about how development of Final Fantasy games has changed in those 20 years.

I remember how we had more freedom when it comes to in-development changes back then. The FF series has a large development team now. This means after we’re done with the planning, it’s nearly impossible to make changes midway through.
Until after FFVIII, we were in an era where we had more leeway.

Also, the FF series is about fantasy, so we always try to challenge ourseles to avoid monotony. We pushed this concept pretty far with FFVIII, like with the salary system instead of killing monsters for money, or the Draw System.

After years and years of requests, Final Fantasy VII is getting a major remake. Could the same thing happen to Final Fantasy VIII? Kitase shared a scenario where he could see that happening.

Well, Final Fantasy VII Remake isn’t even out yet (bitter smile). Personally speaking, if the young staff members at Square Enix say they want to do a Final Fantasy VIII Remake then I’d like it to happen. FFVII Remake was born because everyone currently at Square Enix wanted to remake FFVII with our current technology. So rather than me, I hope the young staff will do a remake.