Final Fantasy VII Rebirth

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
Developer(s)	Square Enix Business Division 1
Publisher(s)	Square Enix
Director(s)	Tetsuya Nomura Motomu Toriyama Naoki Hamaguchi
Producer(s)	Yoshinori Kitase
Designer(s)
Programmer(s)
Artist(s)
Writer(s)
Composer(s)
Series	Final Fantasy
Engine	Unreal Engine 5
Platform(s)	PlayStation 5
Release	WW: Q1 2024
Genre(s)	Action role-playing
Mode(s)	Single-player
Cabinet
Arcade system
CPU
Sound
Display

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Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is an upcoming action role-playing game developed and published by Square Enix. It is the second in a planned trilogy of games remaking the 1997 PlayStation game Final Fantasy VII, and a sequel to Final Fantasy VII Remake (2020). As with its predecessor, the gameplay will combine real-time action with strategic and role-playing elements.

Remake was positioned as the start of a series of standalone titles recreating FFVII's overall narrative, though it remained unconfirmed how many games would be used to tell the full story. The game entered production in November 2019 prior to Remake's release, and was announced in June 2022. The game's development is being led by Tetsuya Nomura as creative director, as well as Motomu Toriyama and Naoki Hamaguchi both as game directors, respectively reprising their duties from Remake.

The game is scheduled to be released for PlayStation 5 in early 2024. A third, untitled game to complete the story is in development.

Gameplay

See also: Final Fantasy VII Remake § Gameplay

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is the second in a planned trilogy of games remaking the 1997 PlayStation game Final Fantasy VII. It begins after the events of Final Fantasy VII Remake (2020), following the party's escape from the metropolis of Midgar.

Players will primarily control Cloud Strife, a former Shinra soldier who joined the eco-terrorist group AVALANCHE to fight the Shinra Corporation, who had been draining the planet's life energy and is now drawn into a conflict with the legendary SOLDIER Sephiroth, who was thought to be dead. Like Remake preceding it, Rebirth reimagines multiple elements of the original game, including the utilization of real-time polygonal graphics as opposed to the original game's pre-rendered environments, as well as significant expansions to character development and the overall narrative structure.

Exploration and combat scenarios both take place in real-time, with the game's overworld also expanding into a comparatively more open-ended environment compared to the linear progression of Remake's Midgar. Rebirth builds on the hybrid of action-focused melee combat and the Active-Time Battle (ATB) system introduced in Final Fantasy VII Remake, involving players assuming control of a party comprised of characters that can be freely switched between at any point in gameplay, and using a mix of conventional physical attacks during combat, as well as casting magic and consuming dedicated items for offensive, defensive and resuscitative purposes, from a dedicated menu while the gameplay is suspended around them. The "Synergized" mechanic first featured in the downloadable content (DLC) "Episode InterMISSION" campaign for Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade (2021) is integrated into Rebirth's battle system, enabling party members to sync up their attacks at the expense of the speed at which an ATB bar fills.

Plot

Setting and characters

See also: Characters of the Final Fantasy VII series

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is a direct continuation of the overarching narrative first introduced in Final Fantasy VII Remake (2020), and reimagines the plot, world and cast of the original Final Fantasy VII (1997). The game takes place on a non-descript world simply known as "The Planet", and centers on the journey of the principal characters as they seek to both end the tyranny of the Shinra Electric Power Company, who control the megalopolis of Midgar with their weaponization of the ethereal power source known as the Lifestream, and defeat the once-thought-dead Sephiroth, a legendary veteran of Shinra's elite SOLDIER unit of enforcers, who is attempting to summon the destructive magic known as Meteor and wound the Planet, to an extent that he may join with the Lifestream and attain godhood.

The central protagonist and leader of the game's main party of characters, is Cloud Strife, a former member of SOLDIER's 1st Class platoon who is now working as a mercenary assisting the eco-terrorist group AVALANCHE, who oppose Shinra's immoral exploitation of the Planet and its resources. Accompanying him are two members of the group: Barret Wallace, the brazen, loudmouthed yet empathetic leader, and Tifa Lockhart, the bartender of the 7th Heaven bar in Midgar who is a compassionate, yet shy practicing martial artist, and a childhood friend of Cloud. Joining them on their journey are Aerith Gainsborough, a crass flower merchant previously residing in Midgar's Sector 7 Slums, and the sole survivor of the ancient Cetra; Red XIII, an intelligent quadruped from Cosmo Canyon who was previously held captive by Shinra as an unwitting lab rat, and Yuffie Kisaragi, an expert Materia thief and ninja from Wutai who resolves to join the team out of a desire to fully realize Shinra's downfall after losing her partner Sonon Kusakabe in a failed attempt to extract the "Ultimate Materia" from Shinra's headquarters. Supporting characters will be met with and play a role in the game's story at different intervals. Chief among these is Zack Fair, a friend from Cloud's past who helped both of them escape Shinra's ranks after being experimented on with the cells of the extraterrestrial life-form JENOVA, who is also Aerith's boyfriend and the previous wielder of the Buster Sword. Also appearing in the game will be Bugenhagen, the elder of Cosmo Canyon, and Elena, a new recruit of the Turks seeking to apprehend Cloud and his allies.

Development

See also: Final Fantasy VII Remake § Development

During the promotion of Final Fantasy VII Remake (2020), it was revealed in interviews published by Dengeki Online and Famitsu that the game would not cover the original's complete story, but rather act as a standalone first game in "a multi-part series, with each entry providing its own unique experience". On this decision, game director Tetsuya Nomura cited a "massive undertaking to reconstruct Final Fantasy VII from the ground up with the current technology", in regards to why a remake wasn't possible for some time. He went on to elaborate, "If we were to try to fit everything into one installment, we would have to cut various parts and create a condensed version of Final Fantasy VII. But there would be no point in doing that". He additionally expressed a desire to expand on the original game's depiction of Midgar for one title, wanting for players to "be able to explore many different areas of Midgar in this game that they couldn’t access in the original─if we’re remaking this world, we want to add in areas like this and depict them with real detail". While Nomura understood the nostalgia behind the original game's story, he envisioned the game as a reimagining that would in turn, "get the fans of the original version excited. We’ll be making adjustments to the story with this feeling in mind". Original Final Fantasy VII director and Remake producer Yoshinori Kitase likened the remake's "multi-part" structure to the multiple entries following Final Fantasy XIII (2009), stating that " "In XIII, each installment told the story from a different angle. It was kind of like approaching an unknown territory in a sense. Whereas with Final Fantasy VII Remake, we already have a preexisting story, so it wouldn't really make sense if that isn't encompassed in a multi-part series... So if we're just looking at each of these parts, one part should be on par with the scale of one Final Fantasy XIII game". The follow-up to Remake had begun active development by November 2019 prior to the game's initial release on PlayStation 4 according to Nomura.

Nomura later stated in July 2020 that the intent was to produce a higher quality game than its predecessor, while also ensuring it was released "as quickly as possible." In regards to the technical improvements made in Remake's enhanced 2021 port for PlayStation 5 and Microsoft Windows, Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade, Nomura noted that while environmental effects such as fog were added to the port in order to, "further enhance the sense of realism and immersion in the world", he advised fans to "wait for the next game where we can start from scratch", in order to fully utilize the PlayStation 5 features from the ground up. Game director Naoki Hamaguchi seperately expressed a desire to leverage the new gameplay and battle mechanics introduced in the downloadable content (DLC) episode INTERmission, such as team-up attacks performed by Yuffie Kisaragi and Sonon Kusakabe, in the next game, as he felt they made for a "different feel in battle strategy".

The second part of the Final Fantasy VII Remake project, now subtitled Rebirth, was announced by Square Enix alongside Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion and the Steam version of Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade, on June 16, 2022 during the publisher's Final Fantasy VII 25th Anniversary Celebration livestream, additionally confirming plans for the Remake project to encompass a trilogy of games, with Rebirth being succeeded by "one final title" to conclude the game's story. The announcement coincided with a special developer message composed by Tetsuya Nomura, now serving as creative director on the project, and Naoki Hamaguchi, replacing Nomura as game director. Nomura exclaimed that the game's scale relative to Remake was "truly rare" for a sequel, and that the title was being designed with newcomers in mind, exclaiming that they, "might even enjoy starting their FINAL FANTASY VII journey with FINAL FANTASY VII REBIRTH", and that the narrative depicted would give such players "a fresh, new experience". Hamaguchi emphasized the team's commitment to developing the game with a "plan to deliver the ultimate gameplay and world building experience. The following month, Nomura and Kitase elaborated on the decision to split the narrative across a trilogy, revealing that the development team had initially entertained the idea of remaking FFVII across two games as opposed to three, citing the indecision on direction as being a primary reason for their lack of clarification on how many parts the remake would be. Kitase went on to explain the difficulties in determining development scheduling due to the lack of understanding regarding the project's overall scope, stating that "It was difficult to see how many man-hours and what kind of development cycle would be necessary, but by the time we finished, we could understand the required man-hours and schedule. Therefore, in truth, I thought that there might be an option to make it to the end in the next game."

In October 2022 during the promotion of Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion, Kitase, acting as producer on that project, revealed in interviews that the game was considered an installment of the Final Fantasy VII Remake project and acted as a prequel to the main trilogy, with the remaster designed to familiarize players with the story of Zack Fair ahead of his appearance in Rebirth where he would play a more significant role. In April 2023, Satoru Koyama, who acted as Final Fantasy VII Remake's lead battle programmer, spoke on the potential of incorporating improved party A.I. in the battle system for Rebirth and its sequel, remarking on its potential to multitask between physical attack techniques and magic casting, while expressing a desire to surpass the 'gambit' system used for the non-controlled party members in Final Fantasy XII (2006).

In June 2023, the official social media handles for the game began posting a series of developer messages regarding the title's progress. The first one from producer Yoshinori Kitase affirmed that the game's production was proceeding smoothly and that they were "working on nailing down a release date for the game." The second message was delivered by game director Naoki Hamaguchi, who promised that Rebirth would feature a "wide and multifaceted world with a high degree of freedom" with multiple story routes, in comparison to the more structured, linear progression throughout Midgar in Final Fantasy VII Remake. The third developer message revealed Motomu Toriyama as a co-director on Rebirth alongside Nomura and Hamaguchi, reprising his duties from Final Fantasy VII Remake and numerous other Square Enix games both within and outside the franchise. Toriyama stated that the development team had "made preparations" for new players unfamiliar with the story of either FFVII or Remake so they may experience the game without having any prior background knowledge on the characters.

Release

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is scheduled to release for PlayStation 5 in Early 2024.

External links

• Official Final Fantasy VII website
• Official Final Fantasy VII (@finalfantasyvii) account on Twitter

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