While Final Fantasy 7 Remake and Rebirth both featured epic fights against summons as an entirely optional thing that players could access through Chadley’s VR missions, in Final Fantasy 7 Revelation, players will be able to take on these challenges in the open world. Director Naoki Hamaguchi has said in an interview with One More Game that this comes down to the team’s overall approach to the upcoming title’s open world.
Rather than making thorough use of cutscenes in the vein of the previous two titles, Revelation will instead try to express as much of the story through gameplay and character performances as possible. This also meant that the team has “structured the game so that many lingering mysteries from previous entries are answered through gameplay progression.”
On the subject of traversing the massive world of Revelation – which has been revealed to be larger than what we saw in Rebirth – Hamaguchi spoke about the implementation of the Highwind airship. He revealed that the airship will also be able to quickly take players to where they want to go, but players will still have to actually engage with the gameplay to experience the story.
“The world is very wide, and there are lots of spaces. And as a game, I wouldn’t be happy if a player wants to go to a destination that takes lots of time. If players want to go somewhere, I don’t want it to take too much time or become difficult to reach. That would create stress, and that’s not good as a game.”
As for summons, One More Game was told by Hamaguchi that Revelation would be “closer to the spirit of the original game” in how it presents these challenges. Players will be able to find encounters that will unlock summons in the open world. Interestingly, the publication also confirmed that the infamous Knights of the Round summon will be linked to the storyline for Gilgamesh.
Further in the interview, Hamaguchi also said that the new FITS system being introduced in Revelation – a system through which different characters can put on different outfits and unlock new abilities in the process – was not a way for the development team to compensate for the lack of Aerith. Rather than “assumptions about Aerith’s role in the story”, the FITS system was instead created from “lessons learned from Rebirth’s combat design.”
Speaking of combat, Hamaguchi also recently confirmed that Final Fantasy 7 Revelation will feature three-person Synergy Attacks in “emotional or dramatic moments”, and that they won’t be available to use in other situations. This is due to the fact that these Synergy Attacks will “be the strongest” ones available to players, “and everyone’s going to want to use that, which will make battles monotonous.”
“So we decided not to make it something that could be used at any time. Instead, we decided to make it more dependent on the gameplay experience, where there may be a particularly emotional or dramatic moment. So I hope you’ll be looking forward to when they may pop up.”
Final Fantasy 7 Revelation is coming to PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch 2 on April 7th.
