After the ridiculously packed year that was 2023, it wouldn’t have been surprising to most of us if the games industry collectively took a bit of a breath this year, but by the looks of it, that momentum isn’t slowing down just yet. 2024 may only just have started, but the list of promising, major new releases lined up for the year is already looking like an impressive one- and in that list, the one game that’s generating more hype and excitement than any of the others is, without a doubt, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth.
Of course, any game bearing the Final Fantasy name is always going to demand the attention of the masses, and on top of that, Rebirth is benefiting from the added hype for a Final Fantasy 7 remake just as its 2020 predecessor did. Even based off of those two factors alone, it would be easy to understand why the upcoming action RPG is so high on so many people’s most anticipated lists. But looking beyond that and taking a look at the actual game itself and how it is shaping up, you’re still going to find a cavalcade of reasons for why Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is generating the buzz that it is.
Like any ideal sequel, Rebirth is promising some major improvements to the already solid foundation it is building off of. 2020’s aforementioned Final Fantasy 7 Remake was an excellent game – probably one of the best we’ve seen from Square Enix’s flagship franchise in a long, long time – and its upcoming sequel is looking to build on its strengths in some key ways, which are collectively promising what – so far – is looking like one of the most exciting Final Fantasy releases in years.
Nothing is more emblematic of how Rebirth is expanding on Remake than the much more open and non-linear structure it’s adopting. FF7 Remake was, by and large, a pretty linear game, with Square Enix choosing to prioritize its combat and worldbuilding, appropriately enough for the first instalment of what’s planned as a trilogy. Rebirth, however, is expanding its horizons significantly, and is adopting an open world approach.
As explained by director Naoki Hamaguchi in an interview with Press-Start, though the entirety of the world isn’t going to be open to players at once, the game will put you in a single, massive, completely seamless world map, one that you will unlock more and more of as you progress further in the story. Even when you’re restricted to, say, the starting area though, the game is going to afford much greater freedom in terms of being able to explore and tackle optional and hidden content, something that we didn’t see an awful lot of in Final Fantasy 7 Remake. What’s more, Rebirth’s open world is going to be a 1:1 recreation of the original Final Fantasy 7’s entire world map, which means all the dungeons and cities that you remember will now be placed in a single, seamless map.
And as you’d expect from that much larger scope and open-ended structure, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is also promising to be a much larger experience than its predecessor, both in terms of its critical path and its optional content. Square Enix has confirmed that its main story will be over 40 hours long, but if you were to properly dive into its side offerings, you can easily get over 100 hours of gameplay. As for how much of the side content will actually be worth doing (especially in light of the less-than-stellar optional offerings of FF7 Remake), Rebirth’s developers certainly seem to be saying all the right things.
Speaking to Game Informer, co-director Motomu Toriyama said, “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.”
Interestingly enough, Rebirth’s development team took inspiration from The Witcher 3 for the development of its side content, as per director Naoki Hamaguchi. Though there will certainly be plenty of optional gameplay-focused activities to dive into – from investigating World Intel events to playing the Queen’s Blood card game – particular emphasis is apparently being placed on narrative-driven side quests focused on characters and building their relationships. How well the game can execute on that promise remains to be seen, but we’re certainly hopeful.
Of course, it also cannot be ignored just how big of a factor the story itself is in the level of hype surrounding Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth– this is Final Fantasy 7, after all. There would of course be plenty of excitement even if Rebirth were just a straightforward, traditional recreation of the original game, but as was proven conclusively by FF7 Remake, this trilogy isn’t going to be afraid to deviate from the original story wildly and in unexpected ways. How will that continue in Rebirth? How significantly will it move away from the original? How effectively will it answer the many questions that were raised by Remake? What will the expanded roles for the likes of Sephiroth and Zack mean for the story- the latter in particular? And how will the game twist and adapt the original FF7’s iconic Forgotten City sequence, which Square Enix has confirmed is going to serve as Rebirth’s conclusion?
From all its story-related hooks to the significant ways in which it has expanded its structure, there’s a long list of major reasons for why Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is looking as exciting as it is. Add to that improvements across combat, progression mechanics, new party members, and more, and the potential here is truly exciting.
There is, of course, still room for failure here – there always is, especially for a series like Final Fantasy – and we aren’t going to really know just how well Rebirth is going to be able to live up to expectations until we’ve got our own hands on it and experienced what it has to offer. But based on everything that we’ve seen of it so far, it’s looking like Square Enix is hellbent on delivering a comprehensive improvement over Final Fantasy 7 Remake in nearly every way- which is saying a lot, because Remake was already one of the best Final Fantasy games we’ve played in decades. To say the very least, expectations from Rebirth are high.
Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.
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