He's just like us - Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth director "was so excited" about The Witcher 4, "when Ciri removed her hood, he almost stood up"
One of us, one of us
Final Fantasy 7 Remake and Rebirth director Naoki Hamaguchi hasn't exactly been shy about his love for The Witcher, so he reacted just like the rest of us when CD Projekt Red's new saga was properly shown off at The Game Awards 2024.
Hamaguchi hasn't been tight-lipped about CDPR's fantasy series. Just last week, the director said The Witcher 3 was one of his biggest inspirations while making an open-world pivot in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth because why not look to the genre's best? But he didn't just play The Wild Hunt for work and research purposes, though.
In a new Reddit AMA with Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth's leads, Hamaguchi cited the threequel as his favorite game of all time. Series producer Yoshinori Kitase then wrote about how the duo were in the crowd at The Game Awards this year when The Witcher 4's first trailer debuted. "Hamaguchi was so excited when Ciri removed her hood, he almost stood up!" All I can say is: same, same.
The Witcher stans, Hamaguchi included, should be more than happy to learn that Geralt will in fact be part of The Witcher 4 as CDPR recently revealed that, yes, that was Doug Cockle's iconic husky voice at the end of the trailer. But we'll need to wait until the game eventually drops to learn why Ciri needed to be the protagonist since it's apparently closely tied to what's happening in the story.
Elsewhere, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth's PC port was announced to be coming next month. The game itself was up for multiple trophies at the show - including the main Game of the Year award - but only walked away with a prize for Best Soundtrack and, like, who could argue against that?
See where Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth lands in our best games of 2024 list.
Sign up to the 12DOVE Newsletter
Weekly digests, tales from the communities you love, and more
Kaan freelances for various websites including Rock Paper Shotgun, Eurogamer, and this one, Gamesradar. He particularly enjoys writing about spooky indies, throwback RPGs, and anything that's vaguely silly. Also has an English Literature and Film Studies degree that he'll soon forget.
Final Fantasy 14 lead says if the MMO could have any collab, he'd want a League of Legends one: "A crossover with them would be a dream come true"
Final Fantasy 14 devs would love to do a Monster Hunter Wilds collab: "There are many fans of the Monster Hunter series within the FF14 team, and I am one of them"