Square Enix is already at work at fixing the issues with Final Fantasy VII Rebirth’s Performance Mode.
Last week, we reported on Digital Foundry’s findings that Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, to everyone’s surprise, had graphical and performance issues on Performance Mode. This was doubly a surprise. For one, this is a AAA title being made on a current generation console, in the PlayStation 5.
While theoretically the Xbox Series X is more powerful hardware, most developers have optimized their games for the PlayStation 5 first. So most gamers see the PlayStation 5 as the standard for quality and performance.
The other side of this that is surprising is that it looked like Square Enix would not have had this problem, because they seemed to have figured out how to get the most out of the PlayStation 5. Their work on Final Fantasy XIII did seem to convince gamers that they had it all figured out.
Today, as reported by One More Game, Square Enix has an official statement about the issue, courtesy of director Naoki Hamaguchi. Naoki told the Philippines-based outlet:
“We’ve received a lot of feedback on whether the graphics in the performance mode will be improved or not. We hear you, and we are currently working on an update patch to improve that aspect. I don’t think the release date would be far away from now.”
Naoki can’t really go in depth about what the performance mode patch will contain and what it will do. But when asked to elaborate, he did let this out:
“We have heard from players that in certain situations, the facial lighting makes some character shadows look very scary. So that’s one part of the update that we are working on.”
When asked about graphics mode, he had one last word:
“I like to play other games in graphics mode as well because I like to see better graphics.”
So we have director Naoki Hamaguchi’s word that Square Enix is set to fix Final Fantasy VII Rebirth very soon. While some gamers have been engaging in console fanboyism, this whole thing just stands out as an unexpected flub, in what wasn’t really a big deal in the bigger picture. It does suggest that something wrong happened in this title’s development that Square Enix wasn’t able to fix in time for launch. That was the case even with all the months set aside to work on it, and in spite of how many people were assigned to it. Certainly, it should be a learning experience for the company.
