Despite being part of the same trilogy, Final Fantasy 7 Remake and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth are very different games. The titles director Naoki Hamaguchi pulled inspiration from when developing those games might explain why.
Speaking with Josephyr, Hamaguchi notes that Remake is a much more story driven game. That led to him and the team behind a title that introduced Final Fantasy 7 to a whole new generation of gamers looking to some of PlayStation's biggest story-driven hits for inspiration.
Hamaguchi calls out The Last of Us and God of War specifically as games he looked to when creating Remake. Probably not series you would normally associate with Final Fantasy 7, but perhaps fitting considering how long Remake remained a PlayStation exclusive.
Also, whether you like them or not, The Last of Us and God of War have become the standard bearers for linear, story-driven triple-A games. It's hard to think of better examples Hamaguchi could have used to help build Remake, especially at the time he and Square Enix would have been working on the FF7 revivial.
Hamaguchi then switches to talking about Rebirth which, despite being Remake's sequel, is very different and far...
