Final Fantasy VII Rebirth

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is an upcoming action role-playing game developed and published by Square Enix, scheduled to release for PlayStation 5 on February 29, 2024. It is a sequel to Final Fantasy VII Remake (2020), and the second in a planned trilogy of games remaking the 1997 PlayStation game Final Fantasy VII. 

As with its predecessor, the gameplay will combine real-time action with strategic and role-playing elements. Set immediately after Remake's events, players will control the mercenary Cloud Strife and a party of characters principally comprising the eco-terrorist group AVALANCHE, who band together to embark on a journey across the Planet to prevent the megacorporation Shinra from exploiting its life essence, the Lifestream, as an energy source, and to defeat their former elite soldier Sephiroth, who intends on becoming one with the Planet to achieve greater power.

The game entered production in November 2019 prior to Remake's release, and was announced in June 2022. All of the lead staff returned after the previous game in the same positions, with the only difference happening with Tetsuya Nomura who returns as creative director instead of director, and Naoki Hamaguchi who returns as director instead of co-director.

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 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. Objective markers appear in the heads-up display at all times, highlighting main story quests and various ongoing sidequests to complete along with their respective distances from the party in the overworld. In addition to walking on foot, the party are able to hitch rides on Chocobos as a means of faster traversal by equipping the specialized Chocobo Lure Materia.  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 composed 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 

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. Rebirth will span the events of leaving Midgar to "The Forgotten Capital" from the original game, though the order in which locations are explored is not the same as the original game. For example, the visit to Wutai will be saved for the third installment.

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 flower merchant previously residing in Midgar's Sector 5 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 are 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 was also Aerith's boyfriend and the previous wielder of the Buster Sword; Cait Sith, a robotic cat controlled by Shinra's Head of Urban Development Reeve Tuesti; and Vincent Valentine, a former member of the Turks who was experimented on by Professor Hojo. 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 

During the promotion of Final Fantasy VII Remake (2020), Square Enix confirmed 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". 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 was not possible for some time. He went on to elaborate, that fully remaking FFVII's content in a single installment would necessitate cutting various elements of the original game to suit the target hardware and gameplay design, by which point a remake of the game would be considered pointless. He additionally expressed a desire to expand on the original game's depiction of Midgar for one game, wanting for players to explore various areas of the city that were previously inaccessible in the original, and with heightened detail due to the increased power of newer generation hardware. 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".

Producer Yoshinori Kitase likened the remake's "multi-part" structure to Final Fantasy XIII (2009) being followed by Final Fantasy XIII-2 (2011) and Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII (2013), stating that Final Fantasy VII Remake's structure would differ from that of XIII's due to the game's nature as a remake of a pre-existing narrative centered on a central protagonist like Cloud Strife, as opposed to the multiple perspectives focused on across the XIII trilogy. He also anticipated each game in the Remake series to be approximately as long as one of the Final Fantasy XIII games. The Final Fantasy VII Remake project would subsequently be revealed by Kitase to encompass a trilogy, between Remake, its sequel and a third, final entry. 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 explained that this was due to the difficulties in determining development scheduling due to the lack of understanding regarding the project's overall scope. 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, the game was designed with newcomers in mind.

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, 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 future entries that would take proper advantage of the PS5's hardware and features in both gameplay and graphics. Game director Naoki Hamaguchi separately 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".

Rebirth was revealed alongside Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion, a remaster of the PlayStation Portable game for modern platforms rebuilt in Unreal Engine 4, and implemented numerous quality-of-life improvements to gameplay and presentation to bring the game in parity with Final Fantasy VII Remake, notably sharing the English voice cast from the aforementioned game, who replaced the original actors from other media in the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII metaseries. Reunion was part 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, lead battle programmer Satoru Koyama 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).

Marketing and release 
Rebirth was announced by Square Enix as the second installment of the Final Fantasy VII Remake project, alongside Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion and the Steam version of Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade, in June 2022 during the publisher's Final Fantasy VII 25th Anniversary Celebration livestream.

In June 2023, the official social media handles for the game began posting a series of developer messages. Game director Naoki Hamaguchi 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. A gameplay trailer was presented on June 9 during that year's Summer Game Fest live show hosted by Geoff Keighley, unveiling the game's exploration and combat mechanics, teasing various story elements, as well as detailing characters set to appear in the game.

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is scheduled to release for PlayStation 5 on February 29, 2024, as a timed console exclusive for 3 months. Alongside the standard edition, a physical Deluxe Edition will be available to purchase from participating retailers, while a Collector's Edition will be distributed in limited quantities exclusively through the Square Enix Store. Both editions bundle the game with a special steelbook case for the game discs, a mini-soundtrack CD and an artbook. The Collector's Edition includes the aforementioned content alongside a collectible statue of Sephiroth and downloadable content (DLC) keys for additional in-game items.

Downloadable content 
The Collector's Edition of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth will include access keys for downloadable content (DLC) items that can be equipped on the party earlier in the game. These include a Summon Materia DLC pack unlocking the Moogle Trio and Magic Pot Summons for use in battle, and various accessories and equipment for the characters such as a Reclaimant Choker and Orchid Bracelet armor set. Additional Summon Materia are available as early unlocks to players who have save data from either Final Fantasy VII Remake on PlayStation 4 or Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade on their PS5 console when launching Rebirth. Players with save data from the aforementioned games will unlock the Leviathan Summon Materia from the start of the game, while players on PS5 with save data from the Episode: interMISSION story DLC for Intergrade will also have access to the Ramuh Summon Materia.

References

External links 
 

Upcoming video games scheduled for 2024
Action role-playing video games
Final Fantasy video games
Final Fantasy VII
Japanese role-playing video games
PlayStation 5 games
PlayStation 5-only games
Single-player video games
Square Enix games
Video game sequels
Video games developed in Japan
Open-world video games