For a time, it looked like Final Fantasy 7 Remake could make right what once went wrong—it seemed like there was a chance the hotly anticipated game could potentially, at long last, bring a version of Final Fantasy 7 to a Nintendo system—specifically to the Nintendo Switch. And, truth be told, that could still end up happening when the game’s first installment does come out a few years down the road. But early signs don’t look great for an eventual Switch adaptation.

Final Fantasy 7 Remake For Nintendo Switch? Don’t Count On It

First up, straight talk: The Nintendo Switch isn’t even out yet—it releases on March 3—so anything about the long-term launch lineup beyond what’s been announced so far is ultimately a matter of guesswork and inference. The same holds true for Final Fantasy 7 Remake, a game that Square Enix announced very early in development to get people excited. It won’t be out for a long time, possibly years.

That sheer timeline is also bad news for the Nintendo Switch in general. The game is launching with relatively weak third-party support—if probably better than Wii U. Strong sales, Wii-era sales, will turn that around. But the Nintendo Switch does, in the end, have a performance problem. It can’t quite go toe-to-toe with the current consoles, and hardware-wise certainly isn’t a step up, despite coming out half a generation after them. Obviously, there’s a good reason for that: The Nintendo Switch is both a console and a handheld, and as such can’t have the power of a full, bulky console.

But it also means that elite, hardware-pushing third-party games like Final Fantasy 7 Remake aren’t likely to come to the Nintendo Switch. That’s why the Switch is getting Skyrim and not Fallout 4, even though the system probably could handle the latter once developers get used to optimizing for it. But high-end software on a system with relatively different architecture, average specs, and an unusual control system is a lot harder to optimize for than a plain ol’ PS4.

And Final Fantasy 7 Remake is going to be cutting-edge. That’s the entire point. It aims to recreate the sense of wonder of the original with modern graphics (and, somewhat more controversially, modern gameplay). If the Switch becomes a wild success, Square Enix may take a chance on Final Fantasy 7 Remake for the console. But it’s far more likely that, even on a successful Switch, we’ll get other kinds of games instead. After all, Square Enix was the system’s first third-party supporter. But it wasn’t for Final Fantasy. Instead, it’s Dragon Quest XI. And that may be the best we can get.