Image: Square Enix
Every new thing I hear about Final Fantasy VII Rebirth makes the wait for its February 29, 2024 release that much harder. And Square Enix just opened the floodgates on another series of new details, hints, and teases about the upcoming “open-area” RPG remake that have me even more intrigued.
The new information comes from the latest Game Informer cover story, which included fresh demo impressions of the game and additional interviews with the development team. The preview focused on the areas around the seaside military town of Junon, with co-directors Naoki Hamaguchi and Motomu Toriyama stressing the sheer amount of side-quests contained in the Final Fantasy VII Remake sequel.
They say completionists can spend over 100 hours finishing everything there is to do in the game, with Rebirth focusing more on freedom and exploration than the first Remake chapter. They promise it’s not just padding though, and creative director Tetsuya Nomura suggested the story stakes will be as high as ever.
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The second remake’s new content includes whole cities. Crow’s Nest is a companion settlement to the anti-Shinra slum Under Junon. There players can meet new characters, get extra quests, and even do things like play the piano as part of a mini-game where Cloud collects sheet music. “We reach this area after completing a quest, and then this place unlocks,” Hamaguchi told Game Informer. “The residents already know Cloud and the party are a part of Avalanche.” The original Final Fantasy VII all but dropped the Avalanche subplot after the party leaves Midgar, so it’s fascinating to hear the remake trilogy is taking a different approach.
Image: Square Enix
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth might not be fully open world, but it sounds like some of the big maps you explore will still function that way. As one example, Hamaguchi said the Grasslands and Junon are labeled as separate regions on the world map. Despite that fact, players can still walk between them “seamlessly.” Final Fantasy VII Remake was a heavily partitioned game, which made sense for the claustrophobic confines of Midgar. It sounds like Rebirth will offer players a lot more freedom and open space to explore and feel immersed in the larger world.
Image: Square Enix
Are you ready for some Persona-style relationship building? Rebirth will apparently let Cloud build up his bonds with the crew through an affinity meter that increases after completing various side-quests corresponding to specific party members. It sounds kind of like BioWare companion missions, and the outcomes will impact who Cloud goes on a date with at the Gold Saucer. Whether the results will have any bigger story repercussions or affect behavior in combat remains to be seen.
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In the old game Cait Sith had a slot machine Limit Break that did all kinds of wild things, but he otherwise played just like the other characters, attacking and using Materia. In Rebirth things will work very differently. He’ll actually function separately from the big robotic Moogle he rides, which can be summoned into battle and will leave when its own HP meter is depleted. Both Cait Sith and the Moogle can even attack separately when they’re together—a little Star Trek Enterprise D saucer-section separation action if you will. It sounds bonkers.
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No new Final Fantasy game would be complete without an in-depth mini-game (unless you’re Final Fantasy XVI). Rebirth’s will apparently be a strategy card game called Queen’s Blood. “It almost has the instant-ness of a shooting game in which your opponent may put down a card, then you will instantly put down a card while putting down another,’ Toriyama told Game Informer. It sounds like rapid-fire Gwent. You can seemingly play it with NPCs across the world, building up your collection and becoming a Queen’s Bond master.
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It turns out everyone’s favorite open-world fantasy RPG from CD Projekt Red influenced Rebirth quite a bit. The Witcher 3 is renowned for its memorable side-quests and how they feel organically woven into its exploration. It’s apparently Hamaguchi’s favorite RPG outside of Final Fantasy. “We did some extensive research into these types of titles and looked at it as a baseline in which Rebirth should be a type of title that can stand alongside it and have the type of content that would be satisfying to its players,” Toriyama told Game Informer.
Image: Square Enix
Aerith dying in Final Fantasy VII in one of the most famous video game scenes ever. Given how the remake trilogy has been messing with the original game’s timeline and mythology, fans have wondered if maybe this time around she won’t meet her end at Sephiroth’s blade, or if perhaps somebody else will instead. The trilogy’s creative director, Tetsuya Nomura, poured kerosene on this speculation in an extended interview with Game Informer.
“I believe that loss is something that happens unexpectedly, and it’s not something so dramatic or drawn out, but is something in which a person that you have just conversed with is suddenly gone and never to come back,” he said. “I believe that the person who dies should not return in this title, and that is what we did with the original.” Will that person be Aerith? Nomura is certainly keeping the door open to the possibility it won’t be.
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