PlayStation Magazine - 05.2020

011

“THE MUSIC

CHANGES AS

YOU EXPLORE,

BECOMING MORE

URGENT WHEN

YOU FIGHT.”

T

his is the first Final

Fantasy game to be made

in Unreal Engine 4,

meaning it has more in

common with Kingdom

Hearts III than Final Fantasy XV

(which used Square Enix’s in-house

Luminous Studio engine). But as

always, an engine is just a tool. “By

putting in numerous customisations

in areas such as the lighting, the

shadow processing, the physics

simulations, and also facial

arrangements of that music based on

the action that is actually taking place

at the time.” This means that the

music changes as you explore,

becoming more urgent and loud when

you get into a fight, then reaching an

emotional climax after you win, all

while retaining the same key melodies.

Matching sound to visuals has also

been part of the animation process.

“The game has a system using AI-style

pattern matching to pick out the

emotional content from the voice data

for the language being spoken at any

one time,” says Hamaguchi. “This allows

us to create really high-quality facial

animations and lip-synching based on

the actual voice data being played.”

Even the lighting bolsters the

emotions the devs want to convey.

“We used a network of over 100 PCs

slaved together to do full physical

simulations on the light reflections

and rebounding for every object in the

game,” says Hamaguchi. “It allows us to

do a really realistic rendition of the

atmosphere in Midgar and create that

perfect lighting for the location.”

It’s been important for Square Enix

to push its technology to the limit to

create a Remake that not only

celebrates the past, but takes Square

Enix’s JRPGs into the future. “The

better technology you have behind

your game, the more expressive you

can be, the more you can show, and

that adds the better characters and

more immersion into the game

experience,” says Hamaguchi. Q

EMOTION

ENGINE

BEHIND THE SCENES

animation, we created the perfect

basis to create the high-quality

graphics for Final Fantasy VII

Remake,” says Hamaguchi.

The new technology has enabled the

devs to play with many elements.

“We’ve tried something new with the

music and essentially by using the

same melody line throughout all the

different sections of the game,” says

Hamaguchi, “but having it dynamically

shift and transition to different

As characters speak,

their expressions

alter appropriately.