Hype surrounding the launch of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is, understandably enough, mounting at a rapid rate, and Square Enix, to its credit, has taken every chance to strike while the iron is hot. New previews, trailers, interviews, and more have come at a steady clip for quite some time now, as a result of which there’s plenty about the upcoming action RPG sequel that’s been revealed- and plenty that’s got us even more excited to get our hands on it. We recently looked at a few key details about the game that you should know before diving into its offerings, but there’s plenty more that we haven’t yet talked about, so to that end, here, we’re going to go over a few more interesting tidbits.
RED XIII
Red XIII was introduced as an AI-controlled companion towards the end of Final Fantasy 7 Remake, but in Rebirth, he is going to be a fully playable party member right from the get go. What can we expect from him in combat though? For his basic attacks, he will swipe at enemies with his claws, and on top of that, Red XIII will also get a new mechanic that will be exclusive to him in the form of Vengeance Mode, which will run on a separate “revenge” gauge. Acting as the thematic opposite of ATB, Red XIII’s revenge gauge will build up each time you successfully block an attack, and once filled up entirely, will allow you to use special attacks that will deplete that gauge. One such attack, called Siphon Fang, will allow him to not only deal damage to enemies, but also to siphon their health.
YUFFIE
After appearing as the main playable protagonist in Final Fantasy 7 Remake Intergrade’s Episode INTERmission, Yuffie Kisaragi is also going to be a playable party member in Rebirth. Her base mechanics will largely be familiar to anyone who played the aforementioned episode, though there will, of course, also be some new wrinkles. For her basic attacks, Yuffie will throw her large throwing star at enemies, which, interestingly enough, will build up ATB faster than other characters’ basic attacks. Not only will her weapon of choice make her a ranged specialist, while her star is out, she will also be able to use various different elemental, magic-infused ninjustsu moves. One particular ability, Doppleganger, will, as its name suggests, allow her to create a clone of herself and attack enemies in tandem with it, essentially doubling her damage output and exploit enemies’ elemental weaknesses to even greater effect.
CAIT SITH
Fan-favourite moogle-riding cat Cait Sith is going to be a completely new introduction in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, and will bring some interesting elements to the table in combat. His agility and the speed at which he darts around the battlefield will make him particularly useful, while he will, of course, also have the ability to summon his large moogle friend and aid him during combat. That will include being able to hop on the moogle and ride around the battlefield and even using special attacks that way. Meanwhile, buffing allies will also be something Cait Sith will excel at.
RUFUS SHINRA
Moving beyond party members and onto other characters who’re still going to have a key role to play in the game, one in particular that Square Enix has confirmed is going to be at the center of some new content is Rufus Shinra, who’s set to inherit the title of President of Shinra Electric Power Company following his father’s death in Final Fantasy 7 Remake. Speaking in an interview with Inverse, creative director Tetsuya Nomura confirmed that new narrative content in Rebirth will “dig deeper” into Rufus’ character and his personal arc, revealing more about him. “We won’t be making immense departures from the original. With Remake, we went further in-depth into Avalanche in ways that were not done in the original. This will be done for Rufus as well. He will have some sort of new episodes that do not exist in the original, where we will get to know more about him and dig deeper.”
CHADLEY
Chadley will be returning in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, once again as your primary means of developing new Materia- though that will take a different form this time. In Rebirth, Chadley will task players with accruing as much information about the game’s larger world as possible. The more you explore, visit locations, and unearth treasures, the more World Intel you’ll gain, which you can then spend whenever you meet Chadley to develop new Materia.
PROTORELICS
One of many side activities that will be available in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth’s world map will be finding Protorelics, which, according to Square Enix, are “artifacts of unknown origin that emit a unique energy signal”. With Chadley’s help, Cloud and co will gain the means to track down Protorelics- but doing so will also come with unique challenges, because these strange artefacts, which have the ability to alter space-time, can have reality-bending effects.
CHOCOBOUTIQUES
A Final Fantasy game without chocobos is no Final Fantasy game at all, and unsurprisingly, there will be plenty of those giant chickens going around in Rebirth’s world. They will, in fact, be a key means of traversal, while chocobo stables will also serve as fast travel points. Additionally, chocobo stables will also have their own chocoboutiques, where players will be able to customize their ride’s gear and equipment. That, in turn, will impact their performance in chocobo races.
SEAMLESS MAP
Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth’s massive open world setting is one of the biggest ways its improving upon FF7 Remake, and Square Enix has made some lofty promises for what to expect from it. For starters, it’s been conformed that the world map is going to be an entirely seamless one. Though the story will inform which parts of the map you can and cannot explore, when you are exploring, there will be no load times separating any areas from the rest. Meanwhile, in an interview with Press-Start, director Naoki Hamaguchi also confirmed that the entirety of the original Final Fantasy 7’s world map has been recreated in Rebirth. He said, “What we’ve done is we’ve taken the world map from the original Final Fantasy 7, but we’ve created it all in a one-to-one real scale. So all of the dungeons, all of the cities, everything in that world is now included in the same space. One seamless map.”
GOLD SAUCER
Gold Saucer is one of the most iconic locations in the original Final Fantasy 7, so what can we expect from it in Rebirth? In an interview with the PlayStation Blog, Hamaguchi revealed that players will first arrive at the amusement park at about the halfway point in the game, following which you will be able to return to it at whenever you want. Each time you return, you will find new minigames and unlock new difficulty options for minigames, while it’s also been confirmed that the parts of the park that will be used for the main story have been entirely remade and upgraded.
NEW CITIES
From Junon and the aforementioned Gold Saucer to Nibelheim and others, all the iconic locations you remember from the original FF7’s world map are being recreated and expanded on in Rebirth, but on top of that, the game’s world will also include entirely new locations that weren’t present in the original. The same was confirmed by Hamaguchi in an interview with Game Informer. He said, “In Rebirth, we’ve added these types of cities like the Crow’s Nest – totally new cities that did not exist in the original to go deeper and create this whole worldview of Rebirth. We reach this area after completing a quest, and then this place unlocks. The residents already know Cloud and the party are a part of Avalanche.”
MINIGAMES
One of many areas where Square Enix seems to have gone all-out in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is its collection of minigames, with not only plenty that will be returning from the original game, but also some that are going to be entirely new. Rebirth’s roster of minigames will include chocobo races (which, according to Hamaguchi, has been expanded into a full-fledged racing game), playing the piano in Piano Performance, bringing moogle kids back to their mogstools in Moogle Mischief, and more. One minigame that won’t be returning, however, is the snowboarding one, so don’t go looking for it at Icicle Inn or Gold Saucer.
QUEEN’S BLOOD
The one minigame in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth that looks like it’s going to be more elaborate than all the others is Queen’s Blood, which is a card game in and of its own- and seemingly another example of how the game is taking cues from The Witcher 3. According to Square Enix, in Queen’s Blood, players will “take turns placing cards on the board in an attempt to overpower their opponent by accumulating power in each lane.” And yes, you will be finding and collecting new cards to add to your desk throughout the game’s world.
DYNAMIC DIFFICULTY OPTION
Where its gameplay modes and difficulty options are concerned, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth will, as you’d expect, bring back the options present in its predecessor in the form of Normal and Hard difficulty modes and Classic and Action combat modes. In addition to that, the game will also feature a new Dynamic difficulty option. In a nutshell, this option will bring level scaling into the mix, which means all enemies in the game will level up as you level up, ensuring a consistent level of challenge at all times depending on the progress that you have made.
SIZE
Square Enix has stressed on no few occasions that Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is set to be an absolutely massive game, and that, it seems, will be reflected in its file size as well. In total, the game will have a staggering installation size of 150 GB, which is very much on the higher end of what we see from games even now, in a time where game sizes are ballooning at a rapid rate.
TWO DISCS
Like the original Final Fantasy 7 and 2020’s FF7 Remake before it, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth will continue the tradition of launching on multiple discs, with Square Enix having confirmed that the physical edition will ship on two Blu-ray discs. The first one will contain 100 GB of data, with the remaining 50 GB found on the second. Obviously, both will be required for installation, but only one will be required to play the game afterward, which means no swapping will be necessary.