Square Enix has proudly proclaimed how big Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is, offering a main story that’s 40 hours long and 100 hours of gameplay for completionists. However, the development team has also emphasized the side content, which makes up about 80 percent of the exploration-based gameplay.
When speaking to Game Informer, co-director Motomu Toriyama assured that it’s not just content for increasing playtime. “When looking at these larger titles in which there is a more expansive world that has these large amounts of side content, some players may feel these have a large quantity of side content, but perhaps the actual experience is not as varied.
“For Rebirth, we took care of having this select number of side content, which we truly worked to develop in depth. This was a large consideration for us, allowing players to experience various forms of gameplay through the side content. In that way, I believe we were able to achieve a distinctive flavor among similar titles.”
Director Naoki Hamaguchi said The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is his favorite role-playing (not including the Final Fantasy series). The title is acclaimed for its side content, which the developer recognizes. Hamaguchi went as far as to call it a “baseline” for Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth’s content, having previously discussed taking cues from it and the Horizon series.
“Regarding titles like The Witcher 3, which has that open-world role-playing type element, 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.”
While you’ll explore the world and meet quest givers like Chadley, your source for new Summons, there will also be World Intel events to investigate. They offer worthwhile rewards, but it’s the story that Square Enix focuses on (with each having a secondary protagonist accompanying Cloud). To that end, the Affinity System has been expanded, with side quests improving affinity with a character and exploring their relationships.
“We wanted to give players the freedom of choice in deciding whether they wanted to dedicate themselves solely to the main storyline and, like, no sidequests at all. Or there might be people who want to delve into the side content and go really in-depth into the character relationships and understand the story deeper, or just the balance of those two. We wanted to give that freedom.”
Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth launches on February 29th, 2024, for PS5. Head here for more details on the “totally new cities” that are being added, like Crow’s Nest.
