Final Fantasy VII Revelation

Revelation will be an open world game featuring a controllable airship – the Highwind.^[3] The player will be able to parachute from the ship onto the game's map, a first for the trilogy. The game will also feature a system called "Fits" in which playable characters' outfit choices affect their stats and playstyle, giving characters access to classic Final Fantasy classes such a Black Mage.^[4][1] New playable characters first introduced as supporting cast in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth include Cid Highwind, a spear-wielding pilot, and Vincent Valentine, a former Shinra test subject turned ally who fights using firearms and a demonic alternate form.^[2]

Setting and characters

Final Fantasy VII Revelation continues from the events of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth (2024), concluding the overarching narrative first introduced in Final Fantasy VII Remake (2020).^[5] All three games reimagine the story, characters and world of the original Final Fantasy VII (1997).^[6] The game is set on "The Planet" and chronicles the ongoing journey of the eco-terrorist group AVALANCHE as they fight against the Shinra Electric Power Company, which controls the megalopolis of Midgar and exploits mako energy, the Planet's primary source of sustenance, and defeating Sephiroth, a former elite veteran of Shinra's SOLDIER program who was presumed killed in Nibelheim, and summoned the destructive Meteor magic to wound the Planet, attempting to attain godhood through unity with the Lifestream, and the enactment of "Reunion", a merging of alternate timelines created through the destruction of the Whispers into a single reality he intends to rule over.^[7][8] The third game will directly pick up from where Rebirth left off, adapting the remainder of the Final Fantasy VII story from the party's visit to the Great Glacier, and culminating in their final stand against Sephiroth at the Northern Crater.^[9] In addition, the party's visit to both the Shinra-occupied nation of Wutai and Rocket Town, both of which appeared in the original game's story prior to the Forgotten City, will be prominently featured after their absences from Rebirth.^[10][11][12]

Summarize Timeline Top Qs Fact Check

Upon the announcement of Final Fantasy VII Remake in 2015, publisher Square Enix confirmed that the complete story would not be covered in a single game, with plans to instead split the narrative across a "multi-part series" of standalone entries.^[13] Remake creative director Tetsuya Nomura attributed the decision towards the "massive undertaking" of fully remaking the original Final Fantasy VII with current technology, which also justified not pursuing such a game for years despite fan requests and anticipation.^[14] He further asserted that attempting to complete the game in one entry would've necessitated cutting various elements to suit modern hardware and design sensibilities, thus making such an effort pointless.^[15] Original director and Remake producer Yoshinori Kitase likened the multi-game structure of the project to that of the Final Fantasy XIII trilogy, but acknowledged that they were differentiated by the former's focus on Cloud Strife as a central protagonist, contrasting the XIII series' use of multiple characters and perspectives throughout the overarching narrative. Kitase by then, also expected each potential entry to have a gameplay length comparable to a single Final Fantasy XIII game.^[16]

Alongside revealing Remake's follow-up Final Fantasy VII Rebirth in June 2022, Kitase officially confirmed that the series was now planned to encompass a trilogy of games including a third entry that would follow Rebirth's release.^[17][18] In early discussions, the development team had weighed the possibility of condensing the story into two games, which created difficulties in finalizing the scope of the project and subsequent lack of clarification on how many games the story would need to span according to Kitase.^[19] By Rebirth's announcement, Nomura confirmed that early development had already begun on the third Final Fantasy VII Remake game.^[20] A "first draft" of the game's script had been completed by September 2023 according to Kitase, but he cautioned that it would be modified based on the public's response to Rebirth.^[21] A roundtable between Nomura, Kitase, game director Naoki Hamaguchi and music supervisor Keiji Kawamori for PlayStation Blog that same month revealed that the party's trip to Yuffie Kisaragi's hometown of Wutai would not be adapted in Rebirth, nor would Cait Sith and Vincent Valentine join the party as fully controllable characters until the next installment.^[22] Nomura, who also directed the feature film Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children (2005), also promised that despite reimagining material from the original game and the surrounding Compilation of Final Fantasy VII media, the trilogy, including the third entry, was still designed to lead naturally into the events of the film.^[23]

By Rebirth's launch in February 2024, Naoki Hamaguchi described the third entry as "in the same situation" in terms of progress by that time, as Rebirth itself was following Remake's release in 2020.^[24] In November, Kitase and Hamaguchi confirmed to attendees at G-Con in South Korea that Rebirth's sequel had entered full production, and that the game would debut the party's airship, the Highwind for use in the game's overworld, enabling players to explore from "a higher perspective" without limitations.^[25] Hamaguchi additionally confirmed that in the interest of releasing the next game as quickly as possible, the developers decided to forgo producing downloadable content for Rebirth in the vein of the "Episode INTERmission" campaign for Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade.^[26] By January 2025, the game was already in development for nine months with the story also finalized,^[27] which Hamaguchi and Kitase confirmed to Famitsu, both expressing satisfaction with its creative direction.^[28]

In September, Hamaguchi confirmed that the title for the third entry had also been finalized, and was heavily informing the game's development due to its thematic ties to the narrative, as Remake and Rebirth respectively embodied "reunion" and "bonds" as their driving motifs.^[29] Hamaguchi additionally assured that the third game would be "high-quality" amidst concerns that Square Enix's internal disappointment with Final Fantasy VII Rebirth's sales performance on PlayStation 5 and Windows would adversely affect development resources,^[30] while also asserting that the game's direction had been set in place with a lot of its content already in a playable state.^[31] Following Square Enix's announcement that the Final Fantasy VII Remake series would begin to be distributed on multiple platforms beyond PlayStation 5 and Windows, Hamaguchi confirmed that the third game was being prepared with such accomodations in mind, with the Creative Studio I team being divided into smaller groups that were assigned to optimize the game for each target hardware, including Nintendo Switch 2 and Xbox Series X and Series S.^[32]

In January 2026, Hamaguchi provided an update at the Nintendo Switch 2 launch event for Remake Intergrade at Nintendo New York, confirming that several minigames from Final Fantasy VII Rebirth would return in "enhanced" forms for the next installment, such as Queen's Blood, and that new minigames that occur in the original game beyond Rebirth's events, such as snowboarding at the Great Glacier, would be reimagined in ways that thematically connected it to the narrative.^[33] He additionally confirmed that despite internal deliberations, the third game would continue development on a modified Unreal Engine 4 due to existing familiarity with its environment and feature set.^[34] Speaking to Bloomberg News in March, Hamaguchi also confirmed the appearance of Rocket Town, Cid's home that was omitted from Rebirth alongside Wutai in the events preceding the Forgotten City, as well as underwater traversal using the party's submarine, and a new gameplay mechanic tied to Chocobos not connected to the Chocobo breeding minigames in the original game.^[35]

While promoting the Nintendo Switch 2 release of Rebirth in April 2026, Hamaguchi confirmed to NintendoLife that development of the third entry was on schedule with playtesting already underway; Hamaguchi himself admitted to playing the game to completion roughly 40 times by then.^[36][37]

Summarize Timeline Fact Check

In January 2025, producer Yoshinori Kitase confirmed to 4Gamer.net that the third Final Fantasy VII Remake entry was planned to launch within the PlayStation 5 console generation, despite concerns it would target a potential hardware successor as the developers did shifting Final Fantasy VII Rebirth to PlayStation 5 following Remake's release on PlayStation 4.^[38][39] The commercial performance of Rebirth, which released as a timed PlayStation 5 exclusive, disappointed Square Enix internally,^[40] which paired with a similar reception towards Final Fantasy XVI in 2023,^[41] motivated an organizational restructuring that prepared the publisher to "aggressively pursue" multiplatform distribution for future tentpole and catalog games across PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo consoles, as well as Windows PC.^[42] Series director Naoki Hamaguchi teased in April 2025 that the Final Fantasy VII Remake series, which had exclusively released on PlayStation consoles and PC up to that point, would similarly be made available on multiple platforms.^[43][44]

During a stream commemorating the second anniversary of the mobile game Final Fantasy VII: Ever Crisis in September 2025, game director Tetsuya Nomura confirmed that development on the game was progressing smoothly and that the announcement timing had been internally decided.^[45][46] That same month, Square Enix officially announced that the trilogy, including the third entry, would subsequently be released for the aforementioned consoles, in addition to PlayStation 5 and Windows platforms.^[47][48] Both Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth launched for Nintendo Switch 2 and Xbox Series X/S throughout 2026.^[49] Hamaguchi stated that the series' shift to launching on multiple platforms did not internally affect the development and release schedule for the third game, but also could not confirm at the time that the game would release simultaneously on all consoles and PC.^[50] In January 2026, Hamaguchi elaborated that the developers were simultaneously working on optimizing the third entry for multiple platforms in conjunction with the ports of Remake and Rebirth, clarifying that every version of the third game would also retain gameplay and presentation parity.^[51]

Square Enix unveiled Final Fantasy VII Revelation during Summer Game Fest in June 2026, with Naoki Hamaguchi in attendance to confirm the early 2027 launch on all platforms simultaneously, and Vincent Valentine voice actor Matthew Mercer present to unveil a gameplay demonstration narrated by himself.^[52] Revelation is the first main Final Fantasy game to be available at launch on Xbox platforms since Final Fantasy XV (2016),^[53] as well as on a Nintendo console since Final Fantasy VI (1994).^[54]