Thread by @ShinraArch

Recently, Kazushige Nojima and Shо̄ichi Ichikawa sat down to talk about the Shinra Electirc Power Company in the latest episode of Square Enix's "Making Of" interview series. This thread will fill you in on the conversation with translated highlights.

As a visual aid and guide for the flow of the interview, a timeline of Shinra's history has been prepared. At the top we have the most recent developments, ending with the collapse of the Sector 7 plate, going all the way back to Shinra's discovery of mako energy.

Nojima says that by the time he joined, development the original FFVII had already begun about a year prior. Those who hadn't been reassigned to Chrono Trigger after FFVI continued to pave the way for the upcoming seventh installment. So a decent amount of groundwork was laid.

Ass such, it was difficult jumping in and writing the scenario for a world and characters who had already been partially built out. It was the first time Nojima had to take on a challenge like that, picking up a project from the middle.

Kitase shares a message saying FFVII marked a departure from the more medieval European fantasy world of knights and magic. Both the staff and players felt that genre was oversaturated, and it was decided the worldbuilding would pivot to a more modern/futuristic setting.

The challenge then was how to replace traditional fantasy elements like castles, nation-states, and dragons with modern or near-future equivalents. One idea that made sense was to introduce a giant company as an antagonist. And so Shinra arose as a consequence of this genre shift

During early brainstorming, FFVII producer Sakaguchi proposed numerous rough ideas for the game's world and setting. One was for a story set in a towering metropolis like New York City that focused on a detective's work, not unlike in a crime drama.

This concept eventually evolved into Midgar, though it wasn't called such by Sakaguchi. When thinking about how the traditional RPG element of jobs (e.g., White Mage, Black Mage) would fit in, they envisioned what sort of crime-stomping organization the city would have.

This led to the idea of a large corporation, which in turn gave rise to Shinra. However, the team was rather young at that time and didn't have a very solid image of what a megacorporation should look or feel like. Square, their current employer, was the most familiar example.

Around that time, Square was preparing to go public, which had a lot of people talking. So that buzz had some impact on how they approached Shinra. At the time, Square had a president, who was very occupied with business and management, and a hands-on vice president—Sakaguchi.

In this sense, the vice president was the one working on the frontlines with the recognition as the face of the company, and that dynamic is somewhat reflected in President Shinra and Rufus. Though Kitase hastens to say the similarities don't go beyond this!

Nojima says that when he joined the FFVII team, the first thing they showed him was a demo where Cloud's team is infiltrating a mako reactor and Barret is pontificating and getting angry. This gave Nojima a sense of the new style and departure from earlier chibi performances.

Nojima says that after deciding on having a big corporation like Shinra, they still had these older fantasy FF elements like chocobos, the world map, etc., that needed to be implemented somehow. And that's when Nojima was suddenly brought on, not unlike a recruited SOLDIER.

Kitase says the story around Nojima's onboarding at Square is actually kind of obscure. From his perspective, Nojima just suddenly appeared one day. But what happened was Nojima had finished working on the scenario for Glory of Heracles III at his previous employer.

Later, when Kitase played GH3, he was really impressed by the scenario, so when FFVII's development started up, he knew he definitely wanted Nojima to be on the project.

Kitase recognized Nojima had a certain touch with his scenario writing—this tendency to create mysteries that then get solved—and he loved that style. He wanted the same thing for FFVII, where players could solve a mystery and have everything come satisfyingly together at the end

Kitase got the sense Nojima was a masterful scenario craftsman, and was therefore apprehensive he might be difficult and demanding to work with. However, he turned out to be extremely kind and easy to work with, and this allowed Kitase to make a game that fused a strong scenario.

After Kitase's message, Nojima clarifies that the one who interviewed him for his position.........was actually Kitase (and Sakaguchi).

Nojima wondered if the project he'd work on after getting hired would be Chrono Trigger, but it in fact turned out to be Bahamut Lagoon, of which Nojima was made the director!

Nojima recalls that he was supposed to get a special vacation after Bahamut Lagoon's roughly one-year-long development, but soon after going on vacation, FFVII picked up development, and he was told he'd be on it. He knew he couldn't refuse.

Ichikawa agrees that Nojima's kindness and flexibility make him easy to work with. He also thinks Nojima was softened up by the insane requests his superiors made of him back during FFVII, so he's glad to work with someone more reasonable like Ichikawa.

The conversation now turns to the earlier days of the Shinra Company, before it became a massive corporation. Nojima says back then, the President was still young, and the world was in a state of frequent war.

Shinra served as a weapons subcontractor, supplying arms with which combatants fought these numerous battles. Their technological innovations made them proficient at this.

With this success, Shinra grew larger and larger as the President amassed profits and expanded his company.

Ichikawa says the early days of the Shinra company, with a young and good-natured President Shinra as the focus, would make a really great period drama piece.

Nojima says though President Shinra is a curmudgeon now, he was a capable engineer who discovered a way to convert the lifestream into an energy source. In the game's timeline, this transition from coal to mako corresponds to our world's transition from coal to oil.

This new energy source won incredible acclaim for Shinra. Disputes arose with Shinra's parent company, who thought the new technology too big a threat, and these disputes escalated into armed conflict for which Shinra provided weapons.

Though the President started out as a pure-hearted engineer who felt the joy of his contributions, over time he grew defensive of his company and had to turn himself into an extremist to protect Shinra's interests.

Ichikawa compares President Shinra to Toyotomi Hideyoshi a late-Sengoku daimyo who rose from humble, good-hearted beginnings and came to be one of the most powerful and ruthless unifiers in Japanese history.

Nojima says that early on with FFVII, Shinra's structure wasn't as specialized and the directors could be doing whatever they needed to do to fit the game's scenes.

There were a lot of different people doing their own things during development, and Nojima would peek over his work booth and see what was cooking.

Nojima would sometimes notice things that weren't right. For instance, there would be plants or trees in a place other than Aerith's church or garden. Nojima would then go tattle to Kitase.

Nojima jokes that President Shinra probably absorbed a lot of mako in his time, so that may have some impact on how villainous he turned out.

Nojima says President Shinra has a romantic notion about mako energy's origin and abundance, which is steeped in Ancient lore. He compares it to how Heinrich Schliemann believed in the ruins of Troy, or the Tokugawa buried treasure.

Nojima says he wanted to make sure Shinra seemed like real villains, as it might feel uncomfortable to be taking down human employees who weren't really evil. That said, in such a large company, not everyone can be bad, so he had to balance that aspect of moral complexity.

Nojima says that in making Shinra into a compelling antagonist, he couldn't just rely on the company's military-industrial background and weapons production. He had to figure out how to incorporate monsters and other such things.

Nojima goes on to talk about the many unique members of the Shinra Company. The vice president, Rufus, was conceived quite early on, as well as his dog. They wanted a young, cool antagonist as a rival for the protagonist, which the older President couldn't be.

However, in making a character with exaggerated coolness, they ran the risk of unintentionally making him comedic. Rufus ended up somewhat amusing in that sense. Nojima once again clarifies Rufus is NOT based on Sakaguchi in that respect.

Nojima says that for Shinra's directors he was supplied with pictures first. He thought they would be bosses who appear briefly for fights, so to make them memorable in a short amount of time, he gave them memorable phrases like Kyahaha, Gahaha, and Hyuhuhuh.

Nojima says when Shinra was still young, Heidegger served in a war as a high-ranking officer in a PMC. But when he saw the PMC's leader was only interested in money, he lost respect and left. Later, he came into contact with the President and was impressed by his fiery spirit

As for Palmer, Nojima postulates he was an early friend of Shinra's who excelled at being an obliging servant. In essence, he's a sycophant who can liven up the atmosphere.

Nojima says Turks like Reno and Rude can be hired either via scouting or personal connections. They rarely turn down those who want to join, and will sometimes bring in those not looking to join and make them fit into the Turks' mold.

Once members join, they receive training, and if they come through it successfully, they can continue working as a Turk. The Turks' salaries are rather high by Shinra standards. This is due to having to be on call 24/7, even on vacation time.

Nojima says by the time he joined, Nomura had come up with tons of characters—possibly all the main ones besides Vincent. Nojima had to look at the concept art and decrypt Nomura's handwriting to determine what type of people they should be.

Nojima talks about making the Shinra Building both a company HQ and a video game dungeon at the same time. They thought about what's on each floor. They used the break room at Square as model for one of the floors. They had to brainstorm all sorts of other floors and departments.

Nojima says that President Shinra and Rufus do indeed have a place to live inside the Shinra Building, not unlike an emporer in a palace complex. However, the President had mistress(es), so he must also have some hidden residence somewhere in Midgar.

A list is provided of all the mako reactors by the time FFVII starts, though some have melted down or been blown up intentionally.

Nojima says the concept for SOLDIER as an elite military force already existed before Shinra was conceived, so they had to work it in. They also discussed the exact process by which one becomes a SOLDIER. Some thought it should be quite grotesque but they decided to keep it vague

Nojima says Zack was a later character who became necessary as the story was written, so he explained what he needed to Nomura, who drew up an illustration.

Nojima says he was initially more of a fan of Dragon Quest and only worked on games where the protagonist doesn't speak. With FFVII, he had to create a fleshed out character for Cloud, but he knew too much talking from the main character would break the role-playing immersion

So Nojima wanted Cloud to be both cool and developed by not outspoken. It was something everyone struggled with.

Early on, Cloud had tons of different animations and poses people created for him. Different people preferred different ones, so it was hard to choose a single Cloud. So they compromised, thinking, maybe his attitude and bearing can oscillate.

That bloomed into a whole mystery of who Cloud really is, which they thought players would find really intriguing. Ultimately, an animation specialist came in and gave Cloud consistent, cool animations. But his mental state still remained scattered.

Nojima says long before the Wutai conflict, the nation of Rhadore fought in a war alongside Shinra, from whom they received weapons and support. However, after that war ended, Rhadore's planetological opposition to using the lifestream as energy saw them part ways with Shinra.

Nojima says "Active" type SOLDIERs have had biological modifications with Jenova cells and unlocked abilities associated with that, while the "Passive" types have not been implanted, and rely solely on their natural human abilities.