Game director Naoki Hamaguchi talks about scale and expectations for one of gaming’s most ambitious remakes.

If you're on the brink of completing one of the most ambitious projects in video game history, you're probably stressed. If said project is the decade-spanning Final Fantasy VII Remake trilogy , a ground-up rebuild and drastic expansion of one of the most influential games of the last 30 years, you’d probably be even more anxious.

Naoki Hamaguchi doesn’t seem stressed, though. When I ask the Square Enix studio head and game director how he’s feeling as the release of Final Fantasy VII Revelation draws near, capping a series he’s worked on for over a decade, the only reply is a wry “I was just so focused, it really felt like it passed in a flash.”

Hamaguchi’s calm demeanor is all the more surprising given the weight of expectation surrounding the project.…