Final Fantasy 7 Remake dev on challenges with the Nintendo Switch 2 version

Naoki Hamaguchi, the director of Final Fantasy 7 Remake, has spoken about the challenges involved with getting the game on Nintendo Switch 2.

Hamaguchi recently spoke with us about how portable play was a particular focus. Square Enix wanted to “deliver strong performance in handheld mode without sacrificing quality.”

Hamaguchi said the following in an interview with Nintendo Everything:

“At Gamescom and PAX West, we showed the game running on Switch 2, and the feedback was very encouraging. One of the main challenges was power consumption – making sure we could deliver strong performance in handheld mode without sacrificing quality. Our engineers worked on rendering optimizations, and we were able to maintain very high-quality visuals that felt faithful to the PlayStation version.”

Hamaguchi also told us that “character expressions and visuals were crucial, especially in handheld mode.” The team paid attention to lighting in particular. “We looked at how we approached it on PS5, then adjusted with post-effects and fog on Switch 2 so that those emotional beats would shine while still keeping performance strong,” he said.

Final Fantasy 7 Remake Intergrade comes to Nintendo Switch 2 on January 22, 2026. We’ll have our full interview with Hamaguchi soon.