No, the Final Fantasy VII Remake is NOT Delayed Until 2023

By now you’ve probably seen it, reported either with excitement or dismay, “Final Fantasy VII remake will be out by 2023.”

While I’m sure we will see it by 2023, this has caused a frenzy of upset reactions that we might have to wait that long.

But did Square Enix really indicate we might have to wait until 2023 to get the Final Fantasy VII remake?

No.

In a conversation translated over at The Lifestream, producer Yoshinori Kitase said they would polish up the game for Final Fantasy’s 35th anniversary (which is 2023).

Kitase then signs us off by making the joke previously mentioned in the thread, saying he wishes to keep on polishing up the game for the 35th anniversary, to which they all laugh and Hamaguchi responds objectingly “Hey that’s a long ways off!”
He then however, also goes on to say that a lot is hanging on the next (presumably big) event, and that they’re hoping to show off (the game) by then.”

It was a joke.

They were laughing about it, not making a serious prediction. It’s like when I tweet that I’ll be editing for the rest of my life. They were talking about the 30th anniversary and joking that they’ll still be working on it for the 35th.

Really, if you want to be concerned about anything in this conversation, it should be the part that also puzzled the translator, that they’re designing Cloud to visually look not cool, or more like his actual self than the front he’s putting on.

But the most important thing to take away is that the sites reporting that the Final Fantasy VII remake is still 5 years off are doing so based on a joke.