Originally released in 1997, Final Fantasy 7 immediately established itself as one of the best JRPG titles and introduced an entire genre to millions of gamers around the world. Due to the success of Final Fantasy 7 over 20 years ago (and unwavering pleas from fans), Square Enix is releasing a remake. However, the road ahead has not been an easy one for this game. Four years after its announcement, we're still not sure if Final Fantasy 7 Remake will be released, and we haven't found many concrete details about the difference between the title and the original title. While news and rumors continue to make the rounds on the big screen, but official information is still scant on the ground, we've rounded up everything we already knew confirmed and all the Final Fantasy 7 rumors are repeated here for your pleasure.
Cut to the hunt
- What is it? A remake of the popular JRPG Final Fantasy 7.
- When can I play? There is no official release date yet, but we hope the end of 2019 will come.
- What can I play in? The game was confirmed to come to PS4 first, but it could appear later on PC and Xbox One. It could even be a generation-to-generation title.
Final Fantasy 7 trailer and screenshots.
The first trailer for the game was released at the 3 E2015 remake announcement. The trailer is largely cinematic and you can see it for yourself below: Another trailer (this time dedicated to the gameplay) was unveiled on PSX at 2015 – Square Enix has also released a series of screenshots from the game which we have collected below. Image 1 of 8
Final Fantasy 7 release date
Final Fantasy 7 Remake has had a troubled development, so, not surprisingly, we don't have an exact release date yet. It's also very possible that the game will end up having multiple release dates, as Square Enix confirmed that the game's story would be told in a timely fashion. The game has been under construction since 2014, but some major official updates have been released since the E3 2015 presentation. During this time, development of the game moved from third-party developer CyberConnect2 to Square Enix's internal team. Such revisions can cause major delays in a match's progress, but according to Square Enix's Naoki Hamaguchi, the decision was made to "maintain control quality while maintaining schedule stability." However, things may be further than we think. In an interview with Famitsu, the game director (Tetsuya Nomura) said that some parts of Final Fantasy 7, such as cutscenes, are developing compared to Kingdom Hearts 3. This gives us hope that we may see the first part of the remake of Final Fantasy 7 sometime in 2019 again. Could be. Could be. What we do know is that the game will be available "first" for PlayStation 4 players, just as promised during the E3 reveal. Saying "first" suggests that this isn't an absolute exclusivity and that the game will eventually come to Xbox One and PC. However, there was no indication of the length of the agreed exclusivity period. The recent watch-exclusive Rise of the Tomb Raider spent 11 months on the Xbox One before switching to the PS4, while Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 was exclusive to the PS4 for only three months. Given this variance, it's hard to say how long FFVII's timed exclusivity could last. We also expect Final Fantasy 7 Remake to be a cross-gen release, likely on PS5 and the next Xbox alongside current-gen consoles.
News and rumors about Final Fantasy 7.
Nomura admits that an announcement was premature.Square Enix's Tetsuya Nomura acknowledged that both the filming of Kingdom Hearts 3 and Final Fantasy 7 had been announced too early.
"I know very well that we announced it too early," Nomura told Italian Multiplayer magazine (translated by Kingdom Hearts Insider). "But even in the industry, we started to believe that we were working on the game. So we decided not to keep it a secret and officially reveal it."
Could it be the distant release date?
The long-awaited Final Fantasy 7 remake may not have a confirmed release date yet, but it seems reasonable to say that we probably won't see it next year. In fact, according to a report from The Lifestream (via Destructoid), we may not see it for five years. Rumors of turmoil in game development surfaced about a year ago, and if true, they've likely slowed progress a bit. A recent on-camera conversation between producer Yoshinori Kitase and development manager Naoki Hamaguchi suggests that the game could date back to 2023. The conversation apparently took place at a recent event celebrating Final Fantasy's 30th anniversary and a Lifestream user has uploaded a translated transcript. The conversation doesn't provide much solid information in terms of a release date or progress, but Kitase and Hamaguchi say they want the Final Fantasy VII remake to have been released before Final Fantasy 35th anniversary, in 2023. Now, even though this conversation has taken place, the transcript makes it difficult to read any tone. This could very well be a joke in reference to the lengthy development process which is now said to be going "smoothly". In the absence of any official comment from Square Enix on this subject, we recommend that you take this with a pinch of salt for now. It's very likely that we'll learn more about the game's progress and perhaps a possible release window at Square Enix's E3 presentation later this year. It's a rebuild, not a hit-and-run remake.
Final Fantasy 7 Remake will follow the story of the original game and feature iconic characters and fan-favorite locations. Considering this is so highly regarded, Square Enix is under heavy pressure not to stray too far from the original sources, but according to director Tetsuya Nomura, it won't be a very direct recreation. In an interview with Wired, Nomura said, "We're not aiming to do this one-for-one remake, or just the original Final Fantasy VII with better graphics." Nomura said that he wanted the remake to "apply to the current era" and "to the current generation of gamers". He added that he "didn't want to change that to the point of not being recognizable", but he has to offer something "new and new". To accommodate modern consoles and gamers, it will naturally make changes to the game, in terms of gameplay, mechanics, and perhaps even some story elements. For starters, early trailers show gameplay closer to Final Fantasy XV mechanically, with fixed viewpoints and static backgrounds replaced by 3D terrain, and a removed turn-based battle system in place of a real-time action-oriented system. .
It is episodic
One major difference between the remake and the original game is that its story will be told in a timely manner. This is a detail that was confirmed in December 2015. According to series producer Yoshinori Kitase, the reasoning behind this decision is that an "HD remake itself" simply can't fit into a single slice and retain the "same sense of density." than the original "We've seen all the comments and reactions to the news that Final Fantasy 7 Remake will be a multi-part series and many have correctly speculated why we made this decision," he said. "If we were to try to integrate everything from the original to a single remake, we had to cut various parts and create a condensed version of Final Fantasy 7. We knew none of you would want it." I hope by explaining a little more about our decisions Please appreciate the size of this project and what we have planned for this remake." Go beyond the scale and depth of the original's world, storytelling, and gameplay to deliver something familiar and new. As I've already said , we like to offer surprises. On the surface, each episode will be its "own experience", but we don't yet know how many episodes there will be or how they will be structured in relation to the original story.
More turn-based battles As mentioned above, one major element that changes from the original game is the abandonment of turn-based battles. In an interview with Famitsu, Nomura said that the battles in the remake will be "action-based" rather than command-based. Nomura didn't go into much more detail about the game's combat system, but overall a formula more similar to Kingdom Hearts and FFXV is expected. This would mean a more active and consistent combat style involving party members that the player can switch with. Although the loss of turn-based fighting is lamented, a move to a system like Kingdom Hearts will be more accessible to new players. A PS5 version?
PS5 dev kits would now be in the wild, Sony's high-end development teams working almost exclusively on titles for the next-gen system. With the ambition on display here, could Square Enix plan to port the Final Fantasy 7 remake to the next machine? For Sony, it would be an immediate systems provider for the next generation of consoles, and for developers, you could imagine this would offer faster processing and a bit more in terms of development window. This is speculation at this point, but as the sun goes down on the PS4 and titles like Final Fantasy 7 have yet to kick off with a release date, it looks like next-gen machines are emerging. to be directed to (Image Credits: Square Enix).