Once Final Fantasy 7 Revelation comes out on April 8, 2027, the entire Final Fantasy 7 remake trilogy will likely total at least 150 hours of Cloud being tormented – assuming the final installment is as long as the two before it. That's already a lot of Final Fantasy 7 remake, but Square Enix company director Yoshinori Kitase might be craving more, and he wouldn't rule out a spin-off, or 12.

He had the same open approach to the original Final Fantasy 7 game in 1997, Kitase tells Malaysia-based games news site GamerBraves. That RPG was meant to be a one-and-done experience until fans' sleepless enthusiasm led to years of related games, like the popular Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII from 2007, which also got remastered in 2022 as Final Fantasy 7 Crisis Core Reunion.

Kitase says, "In terms of the remake series with [Final Fantasy 7], we really wanted to feel like, and we really have put so much work into this to feel like we've done everything we possibly can to make this [newest] title have the best quality it possibly can have." At the moment, that assessment seems honest – GamesRadar+ senior producer James Daly writes in his recent Final Fantasy 7 Revelation preview, "I wonder how Naoki Hamaguchi and Square Enix so masterfully manage to weave nostalgia into something so obviously new in so many ways. Maybe I'll never truly understand."

At the risk of sounding cynical, I think it helps that Square Enix developers are so willing to squeeze every single molecule of inspiration from Final Fantasy 7 until it's dry and crackling. The developer learned this approach 30 years ago. "When we created the original Final Fantasy VII," Kitase says, "we really thought like, 'Okay, we're done now. We can move on.'"

But fans of what many consider to be one of the best Final Fantasy games of all time weren't ready to let go. "The characters were so popular and so lasting," Kitase recalls. "The fan reaction to these characters really is what brought on the spinoff games as well like Advent Children and Crisis Core.”

Now, Kitase says about Final Fantasy 7 Revelation, "We can confidently say it's the end of the series." But there's a giant, shining asterisk assigned to that statement. Square Enix is fine with walking away from its remake trilogy, but the overall concept of Final Fantasy 7 might still be holding a few cups worth of spin-off ideas.

"Who knows what's going to happen with fan reaction and how people come to enjoy this series and this finale," Kitase says. The door is open.

After countless memes, Final Fantasy 7 Revelation boss confirms that, yes, Fortnite partly inspired jumping out of the Highwind.

The Final Fantasy 7 Revelation team had to have an "emergency meeting" to rebuild Knights of the Round and turn the iconic summon into a boss battle worthy of their legacy. Square Enix's first pass apparently didn't kick enough butt.

Final Fantasy 7's Knights of the Round materia is legendary - it's easily one of the series' most powerful summons and merely unlocking them is the 1997 game's toughest, most convoluted challenge. No, I don't want to spend hours taming and breeding chocobos, please.

While we haven't seen Revelation's Knights of the Round yet, we do know they're definitely showing up in the trilogy's grand finale. And like some of the other summons across the FF7 Remake trilogy, you'll need to fight the 13 massive Arthurian knights before becoming their pal.

"Summoning Knights of the Round will be in Final Fantasy 7 Revelation," game director Naoki Hamaguchi reiterated in an interview with MinnMax. "Given how powerful the materia was in the original, we're making it a very formidable enemy." Scary.

But translating the epic summon into an equally epic boss battle is easier said than done. Even the original game's summon animation was so long and so grand, players eventually found a glitch to skip it. During development, combat director Teruki Endo decided the team's first iteration wasn't tough enough: "We need to make them stronger."

"So we had an emergency meeting among all the directors, like the art director, motion director, and I had to explain to everyone [that] Endo wants to make this boss entity stronger, so we gotta start from scratch again," Hamaguchi said with a smile on his face.

Final Fantasy 7 Revelation launches next April across all consoles and PC.

Final Fantasy 7 Revelation's physical disc still requires a download because Square Enix "didn't want to make any compromises"

After it was memed from the moment the game was announced, Final Fantasy 7 Revelation director Naoki Hamaguchi has confirmed that jumping out of the Highwind Fortnite-style was indeed inspired by Fortnite, though only partly.

The Highwind is set to be the central mechanic of Final Fantasy 7 Revelation. The massive airship that transports the party around was a big part of the original RPG, but in the era of realism and immersion, you can't simply drop to the ground and teleport out of the ship as you did on the PS1 when you arrived.

So when Final Fantasy 7 Revelation got its first showing earlier this year, we were treated to a look at how the Highwind is going to work in the third and final entry in the remake trilogy. You'll be able to fly all around the world and choose which area you're going to pop off into, which is pretty in line with what the PS1 original had. Except this time, your party launches themselves off the side of the ship, and skydives down to the map below.

Naturally, when everyone saw this, we all made the same joke, with a ton of memes of Cloud Strife asking "where we droppin'" emerging in the immediate aftermath. However, when asked about this connection by GamesRadar's Fortnite correspondent James Daly (following the Final Fantasy 7 Revelation hands-on preview), Hamaguchi did admit, "We did get a bit of inspiration from Fortnite, [we] won't lie about that."

It's funny, however, that Fortnite is the inspiration here, when Final Fantasy 7 is one of the only things left on earth that Fortnite hasn't collaborated with, as opposed to, say, Apex Legends, which had a big Final Fantasy 7 crossover and also features the squad dropping out of the sky, or the now-dead Final Fantasy 7: The First Soldier battle royale game.

Final Fantasy 7 Revelation boss is "so sorry" for what happens to Aerith in Rebirth, but if you're still upset, "you may change your opinion" by the end of the remake trilogy

Final Fantasy 7 Revelation will launch on a physical disc, but there's an important caveat in that the game still requires an online download. That's in contrast to the previous two parts of the remake trilogy, which launched with multiple discs containing the entirety of each respective game. Director Naoki Hamaguchi says releasing the entire game on disc would've meant compromising on the RPG's quality.

"When we had an internal discussion with the development team about how we wanted to approach the physical discs and the physical releases of FFVII Revelation," Hamaguchi tells IGN, "initially there were conversations about using the same disc size as we did for, say, FFVII Rebirth. But if we were to do that, it would mean that we would have to make a compromise in terms of the fidelity and the quality of the game. So as a development team, we didn't want to do that. We didn't want to make any compromises for the game."

I very much wish that Hamaguchi had gone into more technical details here, because it feels like the answer is obvious: just put more discs in the box. The physical versions of Rebirth and the original PS4 release of Remake each featured two discs, after all. Would Revelation's file size have stretched it out to three discs, or more? Would three discs have been too expensive for Square Enix to justify manufacturing? Is there some technical limitation on the console making a three disc version impossible? Hamaguchi doesn't elaborate.

"Realistically, the only choice that we had was to release this physical disc, but with certain sections of the game being a digital download format through the physical disc," he concludes. "With that being said, I completely understand that not all players might be happy with this decision, but at the same time, I am happy that we were still able to release a physical format of the game. So I am quite satisfied with the end results as well. I would hope that our fans and players would be able to share that as well."

There are two primary benefits to physical games. One is that you have a physical object that you can lend, trade, give away, or sell whenever you want to. The other is that – in theory – you've got a permanent archive of that game which you can continue to play long after patching servers shut down. I'd take having one of those things over getting neither of them, but I wish I wasn't having to compromise at all.

Tired of digital everything, more people are buying physical media: CD sales are up 58% and vinyl records jumped 17%, according to new report.

It's finally here – Final Fantasy 14 just got the very exciting Patch 7.56 earlier this week, and the star of the show is most definitely the MMO's new limited job: the Beastmaster.

In case you've not had the chance to experience the class yourself just yet, it plays a whole lot like Pokemon or Palworld in concept.

You capture creatures from all over Eorzea (yes, old A Realm Reborn regions are finally coming back to life), whip 'em out in combat and use all sorts of deadly combos and actions, try to catch more beasts, and… rinse and repeat. There's a handy little bestiary to help you on the way, too.

Put simply, you've gotta (and will wanna) catch them all – and it's genuinely good fun. I've spent hours grinding away in Central Shroud myself, looking forward to the Crucible, in all its painful roguelike-ish glory… and, of course, the glittery Tourmaline Golem mount you can nab by making the duty's official rankings.

I'm not the only loving Beastmaster, though. Discussions over on Reddit prove as much, with one thread dubbing the job "really fun!"

Its poster exclaims, "This content is great," adding that the achievements tied to the new job "are really cool" as well.

A separate post on the Beastmaster sees fans sharing a similar sentiment, with folks writing that they "wish it was a standard job" rather than a limited one – and, honestly, I agree. Another person chimes in that they've "been having a blast" with the job, with a plethora of replies backing their take up.

My favorite conversation so far stems from a screenshot of somebody's Warrior of Light dressed like Ash Ketchum from Pokemon, personally.

"Had to use the appropriate glam," its accompanying words read – and I love it. I also stand with the responses declaring that "the Pokemon vibe is honestly perfect." What else does Beastmaster carry with it, if not a nice old Pokemon vibe? And, that vibe is why so many of us adore the job already.

Obviously, however, not everyone likes it. There are comments here and there about how Square Enix could improve the Beastmaster (and, of course, fears that it might end up a bit… forgotten, like the Blue Mage).

Overall, though, spirits seem high when it comes to the limited job, and I can't say I've found much else to want out of it aside from, well, more levels and more utility in other parts of Final Fantasy 14.

I'm excited to see what Square Enix does with Beastmaster and how it evolves over time. Fingers crossed it's more memorable than Blue Mage – although, for me, it already is.

Final Fantasy 14 fans spot Evercold character in the MMO's Patch 7.56 screenshots, immediately theorize the expansion's new DPS class: "Is that a crossbow?"

The Highwind floats above the world. Yuffie Kisaragi dives out of the airship, party in tow, and falls through the air with a keen speed before I unleash her parachute, softening our hero's descent into the rich wilderness of Mideel. It's immediately apparent that if we thought Rebirth was big, Final Fantasy 7 Revelation is overwhelmingly enormous.

There's something strange about the Final Fantasy 7 remake trilogy. The numerous differences from the original 1997 title make it almost entirely new, and yet it's easy to feel at home in its many locations, from Sector 7 to Gongaga. The same sensation floods my senses as I tear through feral beasts, before encountering a chubby baby Chocobo.

Not my home but I know my way around

Aware of the limited time available during my hands-on preview session at Gamescom 2026, I fast travel back to the Highwind, and set sail from the skies above Mideel for Wutai. I'm playing as Yuffie after all, and I'm told this section of Chapter 4 is dependent on my visiting her homeland to progress the story. I must admit I didn't really expect to just fly straight over to the place myself – I anticipated a cutscene – but the open world exploration is seamless as I guide the vessel before sending Yuffie back to the deck for another Fortnite-esque descent into the land below, something director Naoki Hamaguchi confirms is an intentional display of "inspiration".

Again, I'm staggered to feel immediately at home in Wutai, but this feeling tracks with the developer's design ethos. "Everything in the game has to feel both nostalgic and new at the same time" Hamaguchi tells me, explaining the need to deliver what fans know but with enough change to maintain player interest. He also clarifies that any big changes have to be made by the original FF7 creators.

One particular change I inquire about is the manner of Aerith's demise in Rebirth, and by inquire I mean demand an apology from Hamaguchi-san. He laughs and tells me "so sorry" but I press him on the matter, producing more laughter from the veteran gamemaker. He then tells me "You need to experience what happens in the very end. You may change your opinion then."

Similarly, piloting the Highwind to named locations and then descending via parachute is an important part of leveling up the experience of Revelation from Rebirth. "The way you explore the world is all tied to that vertical element," Hamaguchi states, and the effect is a sense of scale so grand I have to fight off choice paralysis with every fiber of my being.

Hamaguchi touches on the size of the game, saying "I'm pretty sure that Revelation has at least the same – and probably actually even more – content in it than Rebirth had, and it's all good content." He also adds that he's aware some players were overwhelmed by the amount in Rebirth, but feels "having that huge amount of content is part of what makes the game so appealing."

Another standout component of my preview session is the lack of Cloud and Tifa, with the roster of available characters instead sporting Cid, Vincent, Cait Sith, Barret, Red XIII, and the aforementioned Yuffie. Having been struck by Aerith being a key focal point of Rebirth, I ask Hamaguchi if we can expect the light to shine more on Yuffie or other characters in Revelation.

"Cloud is still the main character," he asserts, before explaining that the team know some players "want to see more of the other characters too, so we very much wanted to have content that goes into each of those characters," which, as a card-carrying member of the Zack Fair Appreciation Society, is music to my ears. This includes such options as completing side quests with different characters depending on your preferences, as well as the more simple but equally satisfying ability to swap out party members on the fly.

It's been one of the great joys of my time with Final Fantasy 7 Remake and Rebirth that I've been able to revel in the company of Cloud's companions. Don't get me wrong, I really love the moody merc and his big beautiful blues, but the added depth to Tifa, Aerith, and many others has resulted in a richer narrative experience.

Not all new content is perfect though, as proven by the mere existence of Chadley, and I'm alarmed by multiple interruptions from MAI, the AI entity created by the precocious young scientist. This apparently feminine-presenting version of Chadley eagerly bombards me with available side quests the moment I set foot in a new place, and it's agonizing given my preview slot is an hour. I'm hopeful Mai will feel less invasive when I'm able to play the game at leisure, but something tells me 2027's Most Annoying Sidekick Award is already en route to Square Enix HQ.

Those Who Fight Further

Throughout my session I enjoy multiple battles. In addition to Yuffie and her fast-flowing combos, I try out Vincent Valentine, whose ranged-based fighting style feels more safety-conscious yet no less satisfying. Then I give Cid Highwind a go, and he swings a spear-type edge weapon with a blend of elegance and brutality that feels perfect for hacking through Wutai's wildlife.

With the ability to mix up the party frequently, I'm eager to see what each combination of fighters will bring, especially now Tifa has appeared as a Black Mage in promotional materials, and other jobs in the FITS system are available too.

Upon arrival at Wutai a cutscene plays out – which I won't spoil – where it dawns on me how incredible a performer Suzie Yeung really is. The Persona 3 Reload actor delivers an expressiveness that virtually propels Yuffie through the screen, which seems fitting given Wutai introduces the ability to use a grappling hook for traversal.

Zipping between rooftops, I find my way to the Happy Turtle bar and restaurant after photographing a cat and having a quick swim in the sparkling waters that surround the traditional Japanese-inspired architecture of Yuffie's homeland. As I walk through the grand building, I strike up a conversation I never get to hear as the session ends.

Now I'm left wondering what the NPC was going to say, what the other areas in the preview build had to offer, and what the unaccounted for characters were getting up to during this section of the game. Above all I wonder how Naoki Hamaguchi and Square Enix so masterfully manage to weave nostalgia into something so obviously new in so many ways. Maybe I'll never truly understand but, if I am able to, it won't be until Final Fantasy 7 Revelation releases on April 8, 2027.

If this is far from your final adventure, check out our games like Final Fantasy recommendations, or our best RPGs and best JRPGs ranking for more to play next!

Final Fantasy 7 Revelation director Naoki Hamaguchi has apologized for what happens to Aerith in Rebirth, but if you're still upset about it, he insists you stick around to the end of the remake trilogy, because you might just "change your opinion."

Before we get into it, please take this as your final – very obvious – spoiler warning for the events of Final Fantasy 7 and Rebirth's ending. I'd be shocked if you didn't know what we were about to get into by now, but don't say I didn't warn you if you didn't.

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth might have gone about things slightly differently to the OG 1997 JRPG, but one unfortunate fact remains – Aerith dies at the hands of Sephiroth. Ouch. It's arguably made even worse by the fact that, for a brief moment, it looks like things are about to pan out very differently, but alas.

Speaking to Hamaguchi in an interview at Gamescom 2026, GamesRadar+'s James Daly tells the lead how upset he still is about what happened to Aerith, prompting a big laugh. "I hope you have some expectations towards what the final outcome is, though, and I hope you can look forward to seeing what actually happened," Hamaguchi first teases, via interpreter.

He then directly offers an apology himself: "So sorry!" Gotta be honest, though, I'm not sure how sorry he is based on how hard he's laughing.

This comes up again towards the end of the interview, at which point Hamaguchi suggests something rather interesting. After another laugh, he hints: "I mean, really, you need to experience what happens in the very end. You may change your opinion."

Obviously, he's not going to elaborate on what he's referring to at this point, but could there be a glimmer of hope there for Aerith fans? Perhaps, or perhaps not. All will be revealed when Final Fantasy 7 Revelation launches on April 8 next year.

Square Enix's "graphical goal" for Final Fantasy 7 remakes was 2005 spin-off film Advent Children as it's the "ideal version" of the 29-year-old JRPG.

Final Fantasy 7 Revelation might have "even more content" than Rebirth, director Naoki Hamaguchi says, who reckons that's "part of what makes the game so appealing." But if you're already feeling overwhelmed, don't stress – the devs really wanted to give you "the choice" this time over what you want to spend your time on.

Depending on how many games you play a year and how much free time you have in your life to spend on them, you might have a very different opinion on the concept of playing an enormous, content-packed JRPG. It's hard to argue that it's a bad thing for a game to be big, but it sure can be overwhelming, and potentially off-putting for those who don't have a spare hundred hours or so lying about.

Speaking to Hamaguchi at Gamescom 2026, we ask about the scale of Revelation compared to Rebirth – a JRPG he acknowledges "had a lot of content in it as well," and Square Enix hasn't slowed down since. "I'm pretty sure that Revelation has at least the same, and probably actually even more content in it than Rebirth had," he tells us. "But it's all good content. It's all going to be really appealing to play."

Hamaguchi knows, however, that for some players, bigger isn't always better. "I am aware that there is a number of players of [Rebirth] who said that the content was just too much and that they felt they were overwhelmed by it. I do understand there are people out there who felt that," he admits.

However, this hasn't put him off from the idea of making Revelation a behemoth, too: "I feel that having that huge amount of content is part of what makes the game so appealing. I don't think it's that kind of game, so I'm very confident in what it is because of that."

With that said, though, Hamaguchi says that "what's important is not how much content there is, it's how you make that interesting and accessible and enjoyable for players to interact with." He tells us that he's learned from fans' feedback following the release of Rebirth, and going into Revelation, not only is its content "all quite different," but he's taken on board the importance of communicating with players "what kind of rewards you can expect, and what kind of experience you're going to get when you take it on."

Hopefully, then, you can expect clearer signposting of what's worth it to you if you're not someone who wants to take on everything the game offers. He notes that we can now expect rewards to be split up across different types of content accordingly, with character upgrades locked behind the battle-focused content, while minigame rewards will be customization options within that specific minigame, for example.

This comes in direct response to Rebirth, where "all of the side content was tied to the Materia development system. So if you wanted that Materia, you had to do all of the content, regardless whether it was something that you would be interested in otherwise or not," he continues. "So I really wanted to address that and maybe improve it for people who felt that, like, feeling of obligation that they had to do it, but they didn't really want to."

Ultimately, the devs wanted to pay attention to the "idea of allowing the player the choice of which content they want to engage with and which they don't," he concludes.

So then, no pressure if you don't want to experience everything Revelation has to offer. Unless you're a hardcore completionist, of course, in which case it sounds like you're going to have your work cut out for you come its release in April.

Final Fantasy 7 Revelation director says "open-world fatigue" is real, and since "the world is even bigger than it was in Rebirth," Square Enix specially focused on guiding players.

Final Fantasy Resonance's director says the upcoming throwback JRPG is part of a "resurgence" of turn-based games, though one that still has plenty of fresh ideas.

Wrapping up a chat with RPG Site at PAX, director Hiroto Furuya says we're in the middle of a "resurgence of turn-based RPGs and JRPGs" – which sounds pretty darn good to me. And if that sounds pretty darn good to you, the Final Fantasy Resonance devs hope the Final Fantasy Brave Exvius refresh might be of interest.

"Looking at the recent wave of things globally, it seems there's a resurgence of turn-based RPGs and JRPGs," he says. "It is kind of like being re-examined once more.

"We consider Final Fantasy Resonance as one aspect of that overarching wave or trend. I think there is something to note about the appeal of classic RPGs, and the fun of classic RPGs, really. We're trying to capture that through Final Fantasy Resonance – but not stop at that.

"We wanted to ensure that we're delivering a new experience, a new title, to audiences all around the world."

Having played the demo myself, I can see part of what Furuya means. Final Fantasy Resonance is very much playing the hits – you've got crystals, chocobos, and a mixture of magic and machinery. More to the point, though, there's a turn-based battle system with some deeper series cuts. There's an order to who moves next, but filling a foe's stagger meter shakes that up – and ensures you'll get a window to deal increased damage.

What I've most enjoyed, though, is that the visuals and action are really dialed up to 11. The art style remains the HD-2D style popularized by Octopath Traveler, though cutscenes, both mid-fight and in-story, really deliver a sense of spectacle.

Of course, when Furuya talks about the trend of turn-based RPGs and JRPGs, it goes beyond what Square Enix has managed to accomplish with the Octopath series and other HD-2D remakes. Atlus has been holding down that fort for a while with the likes of Persona and Metaphor: ReFantazio, and genre love letter Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has won so many awards it's hard to ignore. Speaking of awards, the J'RPG is only really rivaled in recent times by Baldur's Gate 3. I'm starting to think there's something to these turn-based games.

Final Fantasy Resonance appeals to my inner child like no RPG since Chrono Trigger.

Final Fantasy 7 Remake series director Naoki Hamaguchi is to thank for each member of the party having access to all of the FITS jobs from the start in Final Fantasy 7 Revelation.

As we approach the end of Final Fantasy 7's remake trilogy, Square Enix is introducing one of the biggest overhauls to the game in its third act. FITS is a new system which works as a job system seen in games like Final Fantasy 5, 12, and Tactics which in turn will allow you to tailor your characters to specific archetypes, with four available to be equipped.

During a PAX West 2026 panel (via Game8) Hamaguchi reveals that the original plan was to have each character unlock FITS throughout the game as unlocks for getting through specific milestones. So for example (my own, not Hamaguchi's), Tifa could be unlocked with Black Mage, Barrett gets Knight, and you would need to unlock the other classes with each. However, Hamaguchi says this is something he personally overruled, meaning once FITS is unlocked, each party member will have access to all four jobs.

However, FITS, true to its name, will also come with unique costumes for each character for every job, which brings back the eternal style vs usefulness quandary that every RPG player has faced some point in their life. Do I go with what looks the best, or do I go with the most efficient set?

Hamaguchi also announces that the team has included a skin system to the game separate from the FITS. So, if you want Tifa in her classic outfit compared to the loose sleeves look we've seen her donning during gameplay footage, you'll be able to do so. Perhaps even more excitingly, Hamaguchi says there will be bonus skins unlocked from side content throughout the game too, which hopefully means we'll get some good fanservice fits like Cloud and Tifa's Advent Children outfits or Yuffie and Cid's Kingdom Hearts looks.

Square Enix wants to turn Final Fantasy 7 into "an IP with an ever-evolving future" beyond the FF7 Remake trilogy.

Square Enix turned to Final Fantasy 7 spin-off film Advent Children to inform how the remake trilogy should look, partly because the developers believed fans found it to be the "ideal vision" of the OG JRPG.

As part of a PAX West panel that delves into how the trilogy was designed, Final Fantasy 7 Revelation director Naoki Hamaguchi explains why Advent Children was the "graphical goal."

"For many fans, we can say that Advent Children is remembered as an ideal vision of Final Fantasy 7," he says. "So, we wanted to bring the appeal of that visual piece to life as a game that gamers themselves could experience."

As a slide further explains, Square Enix wanted to 'gamify' the film experience so fans of the flick could experience its visual quality and atmosphere – obviously, in a more immersive way. A big reason is that devs believed the film "set a new standard" for Final Fantasy 7 in terms of character expression, especially in Cloud and Sephiroth's appearance, movement, and presence.

Naturally, part of the reason that Final Fantasy 7 Remake could look like Advent Children, despite being a game, is that the latter came out in 2005, so the capability of gaming graphics had plenty of time to advance. Still, it's an interesting visual reference. While the OG Final Fantasy 7 is as old as the hills, Cloud and the gang have appeared elsewhere in the years following that, offering a glimpse of what they might look like with an update.

Perhaps our closest was the opening scene, remade for the PS3 to showcase its graphical capabilities. To the great sadness of many, it was merely a tech demo and not an actual remake reveal, but the vibe was there. Additionally, Cloud has appeared in plenty of other fighting games, both Square Enix-led and not, which gave us a hint of what he could look like in an updated game. For years, a Final Fantasy 7 remake was merely a wishlist item for fans, not something Square Enix would commit to for a while.

How times change. Still, it's nice to see another reference to wider Final Fantasy 7 media, which Square Enix hasn't been shy of making, especially when it comes to what Final Fantasy 7 Revelation might include from the series broader offering – not just its visual style and quality. We will, of course, see what all of that includes when Final Fantasy 7 Revelation releases on April 8, 2027.

Square Enix wants to turn Final Fantasy 7 into "an IP with an ever-evolving future" beyond the FF7 Remake trilogy.

Final Fantasy 7 Revelation might be wrapping up a trilogy of remakes next year, but publisher Square Enix doesn't seem to be done with Cloud and his ragtag group of eco-warriors just yet.

In a PAX West panel called 'From Reunion to Resolve,' the trilogy's game director Naoki Hamaguchi spoke about his goals for the project and beyond. The Final Fantasy 7 Remake trilogy wasn't simply an opportunity to remake an all-time classic game - despite its name - but "an effort to pass Final Fantasy 7 onto the next generation," Hamaguchi says via a translator.

"We want to make this a work that creates new fans 20 or even 30 years from now," he adds. That's more or less the same impact 1997's OG game had three decades ago, though we'll need to wait a really, really long time to see if the FF7 Remake project ages as gracefully.

Whether or not the Final Fantasy 7 Remake trilogy holds up in 2050, Square Enix seems to have more plans for its universe. The original game was followed up (and was arguably milked) with some great spin-off games, some horrid ones, some that have been totally forgotten, and even a lush animated sequel movie.

In what sounds like a similar approach, an on-screen slide says one of the Remake trilogy's goals is to "expand FF7's future" and "move beyond being a classic of the past and shape it into an IP with an ever-evolving future." That certainly implies more projects - games or otherwise - set in Final Fantasy 7's world. Nothing has been announced past Final Fantasy 7 Revelation and its two DLC packs, however.

Square Enix just gave fans their most in-depth look at Final Fantasy 7 Revelation in motion yet during today's PlayStation State of Play, confirming an April release date and post-launch story DLC, but there was one detail JRPG diehards just can't get over: the showcase demonstrated cutscenes you can speed up. That's it. That's the controversy.

I know, I know, it's completely uncharacteristic for a community of online JRPG fans to dramatize a completely optional and seemingly harmless feature in a game like Final Fantasy 7, but alas, one Twitter user reacted to the news by proclaiming, "games are truly dead." That post has 1.7 thousand likes and a handful of comments largely in agreement. "They really did make a mode for larpers that watch YouTube videos at 2X speed," reads one such reply.

Now, to be fair, this particular reaction was in response to Square Enix advertising the fast-forward feature, and after reviewing that part of today's showcase, it definitely stuck me as a bit odd that it was such a focus. But I'll go out on a limb and say that games are probably not truly dead just yet, at the very least, not because Final Fantasy 7 Revelation has cutscenes you can speed up... just like Final Fantasy 7 Remake and Rebirth before it.

I will definitely concede that it's a weird look, and, if you look at it a certain way, it's even mildly insulting to Revelation's writers, since Square Enix is explicitly putting its fast-forward button on display instead of their work in a big trailer. But I do think the feature itself is on the same level as skippable written dialogue, which has been a thing in video games forever. I'll even put myself at great risk in comments sections by admitting I find it deeply annoying when dialogue can't be sped up. Still, everyone's entitled to their own unique feelings on this sort of thing, and I seem to be in the minority by simply not really caring all that much.

"look i'm excited about this game, but this functionality is absolutely an admission of defeat imo," reads a Bluesky post from Into the Aether host Brendon Bigley.

"okay i'm sorry but the 1.5x speed watching brainrot has gone too far if we're now doing playback speed for video game dialogue," says Game Informer video editor Eric Van Allen.

My best guess as to why Square decided to put fast-forwardable cutscenes on display today is that it was a response to the years of complaints about length and bloat in the Final Fantasy 7 Remake trilogy. These are massive games that demand a commensurate time commitment, and I'm assuming the fast-forward option is Square's answer to that feedback, whether it's appropriate or not.

Final Fantasy 7 Revelation's physical edition comes on "one disc," and yes, there's a mandatory download before you can play.

Square Enix has detailed the Final Fantasy 7 Revelation Collector's Edition, and I hope you've got $350 to spare.

Over on the Square Enix store website, the publisher confirmed the contents and price for the Final Fantasy 7 Revelation Collector's Edition. To get the bad news out of the way, it's going to be $350, which already puts it on the high end for collectors editions – barring the really ridiculous ones. This is made even worse for the UK; it's going to be £350 even though that's not how conversion rates work at all (£350 roughly translates to $472).

But what are you getting for all of that? Obviously, the game itself, alongside the Deluxe Edition content which is set to feature two DLC expansions – one featuring Sephiroth and another starring Vincent and the Turks. On top of that, the Deluxe Edition features a CD mini-soundtrack, a hardcover artbook, and an exclusive steelbook with art from all three games in the trilogy. Each physical edition comes with a Magic: The Gathering card titled Final Showdown, too.

As for the Collector's Edition itself? You're getting the physical deluxe edition, and a separate box featuring the only exclusive addition. This is a statue featuring Cloud, Zack, and Sephiroth (who are 6.7 in, 7.1 in, and 7.9 inches tall, respectively), all posing with their weapons next to each other.

This collector's edition is only available for console players, with Nintendo Switch 2, Xbox Series X|S, and PS5 being the only options. So if you want to play the game on Steam, you might have to grab a console copy to get this statue.

Final Fantasy 7 Revelation includes more spin-off characters, Naoki Hamaguchi says, and devs "thought really hard" about including more compilation references for the trilogy's finale.

Before Final Fantasy 14 gets its hotly anticipated new expansion Evercold, Square Enix has one final update in store with fresh Dawntrail content: Patch 7.56.

Patch 7.56 is set to arrive next Tuesday on September 8, bringing the series of Patch 7.5x updates to a close – and, of course, Dawntrail's bigger post-launch content.

Harboring the limited Beastmaster job, new main scenario quests, and much, much more, it's one heck of a release ahead of Evercold… a release that might just lead into the upcoming expansion itself with the introduction of a strikingly familiar pink-haired Miqo'te.

If you've seen the Evercold trailer, then you likely recognize Visna, the mysterious cat girl with icy eyes and a freckled face – something we don't even get to truly apply to our own Warriors of Light (yet, anyway).

Interestingly enough, Square Enix just updated its official media webpage for Patch 7.5, including Patch 7.56, of course, with new screenshots… and Visna herself appears in one of them, implying she'll be in-game before Evercold.

Not only that, but she seems to be donning a crossbow of sorts on her back – and, you know, that's pretty eye-catching, seeing as there are two new jobs coming in Evercold and we only know about the tank class so far: the Bastion.

Could the DPS underway be a crossbow wielder or something in that vein? Well, the image is certainly proving enough to spur all kinds of theories online.

Just take a look at Reddit, for one.

In response to a fan noting their surprise at "the Miqo'te NPC from the Evercold trailer" seemingly being introduced in Patch 7.56 and asking "she definitely can't be the new job, right," another explains that she might just be.

"You can actually spy a crossbow on her back," they write. "So it might actually be the new job." Further down, somebody else points out that Visna is holding a "wand" of sorts, too.

They suggest "the job will have crossbow and wand offhand and you carve runes with the wand which then grant either weaknesses/special attacks that either the crossbow or your bird can attack."

The "bird" they reference here likely stems from the popular theory that the new DPS class is a falconer of some flavor – but who knows? It's all just speculation for now, but it is intriguing to see the girl in Patch 7.56 screencaps… and her "weapon," if that's what it is.

We'll learn more next week, come Patch 7.56 and its shenanigans. There is the Beastmaster job to look forward to as well as more questing and the like, so it's not all mystery.

Magic: The Gathering swiftly learns the power of Final Fantasy 14 as a mommy cat lady overtakes its most popular commander card

Update: A big caveat has just come to light about Final Fantasy 7 Revelation's physical edition. On PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, the RPG will come on a single disc, and you'll have to endure a mandatory download before you can play the game.

This was confirmed in an official Square Enix announcement, which details that both versions come on "one disc" and in each case "an internet connection is required to download additional game data in order to play the physical version of the game."

It's not unusual for physical games to require additional downloads before you can play these days, but up until now the Final Fantasy 7 remake trilogy had been a notable exception to that trend. Both of the previous two games launched in multi-disc packages, which included all the data needed to play without any additional download. I'm glad that Revelation is still coming on disc, but I am disappointed that Square Enix is scaling back its commitment to physical collectors for the final piece of the trilogy.

Original story: It's official: Final Fantasy 7 Revelation will be released physically alongside the digital launch on April 8, 2027. The game's launch is coming well before Sony's planned 2028 cutoff for physical PlayStation discs, but director Naoki Hamaguchi had previously been cagey on the topic of a physical release. Yet I guess there was no reason to worry.

Square Enix confirmed the news in a tweet. "The promise has been made," the post begins. "Final Fantasy VII Revelation launches both physically and digitally on April 8, 2027."

That line about a "promise" is certainly intended as a tagline referring to the end of the trilogy, but it has an extra air of sincerity for collectors who've already added the first two parts to their shelves.

Both previous parts of the remake trilogy launched on disc, and some people – hi, it's me, I'm some people – even own those discs multiple times over thanks to a multi-gen release of the first game. I'm upset about discs going away for a wide variety of reasons, but it's at least nice to know I won't have to keep an empty box on my shelf where Revelation should go.

There's one big caveat for Nintendo collectors, however. As with previous releases of the remake trilogy on Switch 2, this one will come on a game-key card. Can't win them all, I guess.

Plenty of additional info on Final Fantasy 7 Revelation dropped alongside today's State of Play trailer, too. We've got an April release date, confirmation of two story DLC expansions, and a $350 collector's edition featuring more inches of Sephiroth than any of us can reasonably deal with.

Here are all the new games for 2026 and beyond you need to know about.

It's official – Final Fantasy 7 Revelation will be getting story DLC later down the line, with a two-part Story Expansion Pass confirmed for the JRPG remake.

As outlined in a PlayStation Blog post following Revelation's appearance at today's PlayStation State of Play, the "Story Expansion Pass will grant access to two story-centered DLC, with more exciting details on these to come at a later point!"

Over on Steam, there are a few more details to make note of – the first story DLC is titled Sephiroth, and is aiming for a launch sometime between winter 2027 and spring 2028. After that, the second DLC is called Vincent & the Turks, which has been given the same vague release window.

As well as being available separately, the Story Expansion Pass will be included in a newly announced Premium and Premium Plus Editions. Both of these fancy editions will grant 24 hours of early access to the main game, some in-game consumables, and an in-game accessory, while the Premium Plus version comes with some extras including a digital art book and mini soundtrack.

Final Fantasy 7 Revelation's Story Expansion Pass was previously leaked via a third-party Epic Games Store database tool, though at the time it wasn't clear if it could have been a placeholder. With that said, Final Fantasy Remake trilogy lead Naoki Hamaguchi previously said, even before Revelation had been officially revealed, that the then-unnamed third part in the series could get DLC if there was "significant demand," so it only felt like a matter of time before its confirmation.

Final Fantasy 7 Revelation launches "both physically and digitally" on the same day: "The promise has been made."

As much as I enjoy the high-fidelity visuals and real-time combat available in Final Fantasy 7 Remake and Rebirth, I'll always be a sucker for a pixel-art, turn-based RPG. Clearly, Square Enix also understands this timeless appeal because the publisher is on course to release Final Fantasy Resonance this year and, after playing it at Gamescom, it's now my most anticipated new game this year.

With its HD-2D aesthetic blending 2D sprites with 3D environments, Final Fantasy Resonance brings to mind games like Octopath Traveler, and instantly feels familiar if you're well-versed in classic RPGs. You roam around the world before the screen shatters and a battle begins, inputting commands and watching them play out in a sequence as you whittle down enemy health bars. However, Resonance isn't without a unique twist.

An RPG with Vision

The party I get to play with is made up of four original characters, with a variety of skills and elemental affinities, including Rain who deals melee damage with vigor, and Fina who boasts great healing spells. However, I'm most struck by the fact each hero has a Vision; a spirit character who supports them by sharing powers in combat. I'm told some Visions are new while many others are familiar faces from the Final Fantasy franchise, which makes sense as I'm staring at Cloud Strife from FF7.

These spirit friends, reminiscent of the Stands from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and the equipable characters in Fire Emblem Engage, can be unlocked by beating in-game dungeons known as Sanctums. Once selected, they diversify each party member's repertoire by adding new spells, increasing your options in battle.

Visions are most noteworthy when performing Resonance attacks – special moves that can be used once all enemies are staggered (denoted by a separate gauge to their health). Once their postures are broken, you can hit them with the titular flashy attack for huge damage.

However, if your character's Vision gauge is full, you can perform a Sweeping Resonance for even greater effect. I start off using Cloud's jaw-dropping Sweeping Resonance, the HD-2D graphics giving way to gorgeous, fully-rendered 3D models as Cloud furiously slashes through enemies.

Similarly, when The Warrior of Light from the OG Final Fantasy manifests in full 3D and brings destruction upon my enemies, I feel a giddy thrill that appeals to my inner child more than an ice-cold glass of Dr Pepper.

The combination of visual styles isn't the only way Final Fantasy Resonance so lovingly blends old and new. Being a classic-style RPG, the developer hasn't shied away from grinding as an in-game mechanic. That might put some players off, but you can toggle the speed of encounters to effectively half the time required to level up your party and Visions. It's a simple feature, but the difference it can make should not be underestimated.

In addition, my preview's dungeon comes complete with useful checkpoints for fast travel and resting, which are modern staples that I always appreciate. It also helps that the item names are all instantly recognizable to Final Fantasy veterans, from Hi-Potions to Phoenix Downs, creating a sense of familiarity that maintains momentum.

This isn't to say that nostalgia is vital to enjoying Final Fantasy Resonance. The turn-based combat is layered and exciting, and the pixel art shimmers like a California sunset. But to those of us of a certain vintage (old enough to have played those older pixel RPGs at launch, as well as catch the Jamiroquai reference in the last sentence), this game channels the era when Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy 6 captured our hearts while still keeping our feet firmly planted in the here and now. It's a masterstroke and only Square Enix could have managed it.

Resonate with this preview? Then check out our best Final Fantasy games ranking or our best JRPGs list for more to play next!

Square Enix has confirmed that Final Fantasy 7 Revelation is going to release on April 8, 2027

The new PlayStation State of Play trailer for Final Fantasy 7 Revelation focused on the party members, with new looks at Cid and Vincent, who round out the original cast of Final Fantasy 7 characters featured in the original game. Not only that, but we got a new look at some of the areas featured in the final chapter, like Yuffie's home of Wutai.

More importantly, however, Square Enix confirmed exactly when we'll be playing Final Fantasy 7 Revelation: April 8, 2027, which is almost exactly seven years after the release of Final Fantasy 7 Remake on April 10, 2020.

Square Enix followed up this trailer with a deep-dive into the gameplay of Final Fantasy 7 Revelation, showing some of the open-world gameplay and the party channeling their inner Fortnite as they dive off the battle bus-flavored Highwind. We also saw some of the new traversal mechanics once you are off the Highwind, with Yuffie using a grapple gun to get around Wutai.

On top of that, you're also to choose your main character in the open world, with the player no longer locked to playing as Cloud. This extends into the side quests too, as Square showed off that these can play out differently depending on which character you choose to take the quest on as.

All that is to say, Square Enix heard that Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth was too big for some, and seems to have made it even bigger for Revelation.

Final Fantasy 7 Revelation includes more spin-off characters, Naoki Hamaguchi says, and devs "thought really hard" about including more compilation references for the trilogy's finale.

Final Fantasy Resonance, the first Final Fantasy game presented in Square Enix's HD-2D style, is getting a demo later today, September 3.

Though announced at today's PlayStation State of Play live show, the Final Fantasy Resonance demo is expected on all platforms, which also includes Xbox, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC (Steam).

The demo is unavailable and unlisted at the time of writing. A PlayStation trailer confirms that the demo covers "the entire first chapter" of the game, with progress carrying over to the full game if you decide to buy in.

The trailer gives us a look at Sephiroth as he appears in the Final Fantasy 7 Remake trilogy – and, more importantly, Resonance's giant, pixel art, boss fight Sephiroth.

Sephiroth is the latest Final Fantasy icon to get the HD-2D treatment courtesy of Resonance. A suite of characters make combat cameos in summon-like Resonance attacks, with the likes of Final Fantasy 10's Tidus and Final Fantasy 7's Cloud already shown.

The HD-2D style was pioneered by Octopath Traveler then refined in the likes of the Dragon Quest remakes and, per our The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales review, some more recent outings. Resonance is both the next Final Fantasy game and the first entry to adopt this art style – and, somewhat confusingly, also technically a remake of Final Fantasy Brave Exvius.

Final Fantasy Resonance itself will be released next month on October 22.

Resonance returns to turn-based combat and random encounters, with producer Keisuka Nakashima arguing that the system allows for "truly memorable" battles.

The game exists largely because Nakashima and other Brave Exvius developers felt that the once-gacha-driven game is "too good to become unplayable" after its global end of service in 2025. As someone who's wanted a turn-based, HD-2D Final Fantasy ever since Octopath Traveler was released, I'm excited to see if

Final Fantasy 7 Revelation boss is "very much aware" you hate Chadley for being a socially inept doofus, but he will soon have "a very integral part" in the story anyway.

Final Fantasy 7 Revelation director Naoki Hamaguchi knows exactly what you were thinking as you played the existing two installments of the remake trilogy: get this robot pee pee pants Chadley off my screen now and forever, I banish thee. But you're going to have to try to adopt a more positive mindset. The unhelpful assistant humanoid Chadley is returning for Final Fantasy 7 Revelation, due in 2027, and Hamaguchi teases that the golden-haired nuisance might be more critical to your story than ever before.

"I am very much aware of the reaction some fans in the community had to Chadley," Hamaguchi says to IGN through an interpreter at Gamescom 2026. So far, the gnat with a baby face hasn't proved himself as "a particularly important character to the story," Hamaguchi continues. "I am very much aware of that opinion." But it sounds like Final Fantasy 7 Revelation will try to change it.

"In the previous game, in Rebirth, [Chadley's] role is such [that he was] kind of a guide, a tutorial, to lead people into all of the side content," Hamaguchi explains, "but his role has actually changed for Revelation." The conclusion to the Final Fantasy 7 remake trilogy will apparently contain "some scenes where he plays a very integral part, a strong role, in the main story itself."

Does this mean Chadley will finally learn how to read a room? The character was introduced for the first Final Fantasy 7 Remake part in 2020, simply because, Hamaguchi said at the time, "We wanted to include content in which [combat upgrades and modifier] materia could be obtained through mission rewards in parallel with the main story progression; considering lore, we came up with a role that would make him a researcher working for Shinra." As such, Chadley seemingly never had a reason to be pleasant to be around, and both he and Final Fantasy 7 trilogy players suffered for it.

Most recently, the lonely dweeb created an entire AI female version of himself, Mai, to increase his opportunities to talk to you. But though he created her, Mai hardly showed Chadley respect. That's no way for Chadley to live, and it's an unfortunate domestic scene for you to witness as an objective third party. What a miserable Chadley existence.

Anyway, Final Fantasy 7 Revelation will be the guy's last chance to act natural… or possibly even supernatural.

"I can't tell you right now whether he does become more powerful than Sephiroth or not," Hamaguchi says to IGN's joking question on the topic, "but you're going to have to see in the game. And I hope you look forward to finding out." OK, I won't.

Final Fantasy 7 Revelation includes more spin-off characters, Naoki Hamaguchi says, and devs "thought really hard" about including more compilation references for the trilogy's finale.

A real joy of both Final Fantasy 7 Remake and Rebirth was seeing all the references to the universe as a whole. This tradition will continue in Final Fantasy 7 Revelation, according to director Naoki Hamaguchi, but he refuses to spoil any characters from across the original game's spin-offs that we might see.

"If I was to just come out now and say this character is in it, this character is in it would be a big surprise to people. So I can’t say that," he tells IGN. Boo! What he will say, though, is that an explicit goal here was to re-combine all the Final Fantasy 7 Compilation elements.

"The objective we have not just with Revelation, but with all three of the games in the Remake trilogy was to remake not just the original FF7 itself," he explains, "but to create a new version of the FF7 universe which includes all of the compilation, the side stories, the side content, spin-off titles within that content from the beginning."

Vincent Valentine's backstory from Dirge of Cerberus is part of his lore in Rebirth stands out as one example, but it's the side characters that are the most intriguing. Cissnei from Crisis Core pops up in Rebirth, and Zack Fair is alive as well, pulling him out of just being flashbacks for Cloud.

"I think that was a really nice surprise and people reacted very positively to seeing the compilation characters appearing," he says. "And rest assured, quite naturally that is going to continue into Revelation."

I should expect so. If I had to guess at who might show up, Veld and Elfé from Before Crisis would be interesting, and Genesis Rhapsodos seems likely, since the trilogy's leaned quite heavily into Crisis Core so far.

Hamaguchi doubles down on the idea that, since this is the trilogy closer, things will be bigger and better than before. "With Revelation being the finale, the culmination of the series, the team got together and we thought really hard about what kind of fan service things, what kind of ways people will be excited to see these characters and these references to the spin-offs appear in it," he explains.

"So rest assured that there is a lot of great stuff for people looking out for that."

Final Fantasy 7 Revelation director promises to "go even deeper" into Vincent's backstory since the JRPG's goth icon has been a mystery for 30 years

Blue Dragon – Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi's first RPG after leaving Square Enix – is finally free from the Xbox 360 thanks to a fanmade PC port.

Last year, a fanmade PC port of Sonic Unleashed helped open the floodgates for native PC versions of Xbox 360 games by using the new tool XenonRecomp. And while I'd mostly hoped the tool would be used for a WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2007 port (which, shockingly, actually happened), I imagine others were eager to get two of the Xbox 360's biggest RPGs made by the creator of Final Fantasy – Lost Odyssey and Blue Dragon, both of which Sakaguchi said he wasn't really keen on bringing to modern platforms.

Sakaguchi left Square in 2001 following the box office bomb that was Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, and in 2006 he emerged with his first new RPG, Blue Dragon. Not only was this game a reunion between Sakaguchi and Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu, but also, it enlisted another RPG legend in Dragon Quest artist and Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama. This classic can now finally be played on PC.

As spotted by PC Gamer, re:Blue is a fan-made PC port of Blue Dragon released earlier this month, and it allows anyone who owns the original Xbox 360 game (which is currently still available on the Xbox Store) to dump their files and play an enhanced version on PC. The port features support for multiple aspect ratios, 4K visuals, keyboard and mouse support, and the ability to play the game at up to 120fps. Plus, re:Blue gives you access to in-game achievements, including new ones added specifically for the port.

So while Blue Dragon has technically been available through backwards compatibility on Xbox consoles for 20 years, I'm glad more people will now have a chance to play one of the Xbox 360's earliest crown jewels with the PC port the game has always deserved. It's a piece of Final Fantasy history. Let's get to Lost Odyssey next, thanks.

Final Fantasy 7 Revelation director promises to "go even deeper" into Vincent's backstory since the JRPG's goth icon has been a mystery for 30 years.

Vincent Valentine's been somewhat of an enigma ever since the original Final Fantasy 7 introduced us to the brood-maxxing goth icon 30 years ago, but Final Fantasy 7 Revelation director Naoki Hamaguchi is promising that'll all change very soon.

"Unlike the other optional character Yuffie, [Vincent's] hometown and where he comes from wasn't actually shown in the original Final Fantasy 7," Naoki Hamaguchi explains during an official Gamescom livestream. Revelation aims to shed a little more light on the coffin-dweller, though. (Good spot, Genki!)

"So Vincent obviously is an ex-member of the Turks," Hamaguchi continues. "People know about some of his background, but rest assured that in Revelation we go even deeper into his backstory, and there will be some new reveals about things that he did in the past and what made him as a character that people have never seen before."

The Remake trilogy lead assures fans that anyone "looking to go even deeper into Vincent Valentine" will be quite happy when Revelation drops next spring. "We really have got the game in just the right place, and I can't wait to see people experience that."

The OG Final Fantasy 7 left things pretty vague for the brooding, sleepy guy. Vincent's subject to awful experimentation decades before the game begins and we get a little bit of insight into his tragic, potentially one-sided love story, but that aside, we know very little about what his life looked like prior to becoming a Shinra puppet. His arc also ends quite abruptly even if you do choose to tackle his late-game side quest, so there's plenty to expand on in the finale, on top of the Dirge of Cerberus references we've seen so far.

Talking on the character's combat style, Hamaguchi jokes he's actually "worried how well we've done Vincent in the game" because players "will just want to control Vincent and gravitate too far towards him and not the other characters."

It'll take a miracle to pull me away from Tifa's kickass combos, but Vincent might just be the one to do it. He can apparently transform into a horned beast at will to deliver devastating damage up close, before zipping back into his beautiful human form to spray enemies with bullets from afar.

Final Fantasy 7 Revelation trailer at Opening Night Live is just the "beginning of our information rollout," Naoki Hamaguchi says: "We’ll be sharing much more in the months ahead"

Final Fantasy 7 remake trilogy overlord Naoki Hamaguchi can't believe he got to share the Gamescom stage with his hero, Geralt of Rivia – in spirit, at least, since developer CD Projekt Red used Opening Night Live 2026 to announce its unexpected The Witcher 3 refresh and expansion. And The Witcher 4 lead level designer Miles Tost feels the same way.

"The pleasure was ours," Tost writes in an August 26 Twitter reply to Hamaguchi. "Final Fantasy, especially 7 have a special place in my heart and I'm so happy I get to relive that through your and your team's hard work!"

Originally, Hamaguchi wrote on Twitter after Opening Night Live (ONL), "Sharing the final spotlight at ONL alongside The Witcher 3, one of my favorite games of all time, was a truly special moment for me.
It was a great honor to stand on the same stage as a game that has inspired me for so many years."

It's rare that you see developers as seemingly untouchable as Square Enix's Hamaguchi show that, in the cocoon of their living rooms, they're still fans who feel that knot of excitement forming each time a certain title screen comes up. It's nice!

Hamaguchi has always been generous in sharing his love for The Witcher franchise, though, spending the past few years emphasizing that The Witcher 3 is one of his major Final Fantasy 7 remake inspirations. In 2024, Final Fantasy producer Yoshinori Kitase even told fans that, while watching that year's Witcher 4 trailer at The Game Awards, "Hamaguchi was so excited when Ciri removed her hood, he almost stood up!"

So I'm especially glad for him to be at Gamescom this year, where he was also recently able to meet CD Projekt Red joint CEO Michał Nowakowski and show him some of Square Enix's upcoming Final Fantasy 7 Revelation. Hamaguchi says on Twitter about the experience, "It was a great honor to have Michał Nowakowski, Joint CEO of CD PROJEKT RED, stop by the Square Enix booth.

"Sharing the stage at ONL alongside The Witcher 3, one of my all-time favorite games, was already a special moment. Having Michał come by in person made it even more memorable.

"I was also very happy to tell him directly that The Witcher 3 continues to be one of the biggest inspirations for me as a game creator." Let us pray, now, for Hamaguchi's sake, that the new The Witcher 3 expansion Songs of the Past is just as sweet as he probably thinks it is when it launches in 2027.

Keep up with the entire Gamescom 2026 schedule.

Final Fantasy 7 Revelation is expected to be slapped with an M for Mature age rating by the time it comes out next year, unlike FF7 Remake and Rebirth's slightly more tame ratings - and I'm guessing the inclusion of the bad-mouthed chain-smoker Cid as a permanent party member has something to do with it.

Final Fantasy 7 Remake and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth both launched with T for Teen ESRB ratings. Neither game had anything too frisky aside from the occasional swear word or very rare sight of a katana going through someone's belly. Both games also sanded down some of the original's most explicitly violent moments - modern Sephiroths's rampage through Shinra Tower didn't leave the walls dripping in blood, for instance.

But for whatever reason, Final Fantasy 7 Revelation looks like it's doing things differently. According to an Xbox Store listing, the upcoming game has a tentative 'Likely Mature 17+' rating. The ESRB website explains the sticker means Final Fantasy 7 Revelation is "anticipated to be rated 17+" upon launch, which would indicate "intense violence, blood and gore, and/or strong language." The rating is subject to change closer to release, of course.

While Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth's version of Cid definitely put a leash on the air pilot and his foul mouth, the fact that he's now a permanent and playable party member who's with you from the jump gives me some hope that Revelation's take on the character might be closer to his original incarnation: short tempered, sometimes downright rude, always full of smoke, and certainly M for Mature.

Final Fantasy fans had some other ideas of what could warrant Revelation getting a more mature rating than Remake or Rebirth, including but not limited to an intimate scene in the original game that'll make Aerith shippers mad and "Sephiroth hanging dong," which is probably (and sadly) not very likely.

Final Fantasy 7 Revelation trailer at Opening Night Live is just the "beginning of our information rollout," Naoki Hamaguchi says: "We’ll be sharing much more in the months ahead"

Final Fantasy 7 remake trilogy director Naoki Hamaguchi says that the Gamescom announcements and trailer reveal for the final entry Final Fantasy 7 Revelation "marks the beginning" of fresh information about the game.

First unveiled at Summer Game Fest in June 2026, Final Fantasy 7 Revelation's Gamescom trailer is just the second released for the long-awaited game. However, Hamaguchi took to Twitter after the show to explain that the latest trailer is just the beginning of the game's upcoming announcements, with many more expected before the game's release early next year.

In the tweet, Hamaguchi says that the Opening Night Live trailer "marks the beginning of our information rollout," and continues that the team will "be sharing much more in the months ahead." While there is still plenty of time before Revelation's launch, we can expect a lot more information in the future.

The tweet is written in both English and Japanese and contains mostly the same information. The main difference between the two is that the English mentions information coming "in the months ahead," whereas the Japanese is vaguer about the time frame. However, distinctions like this are not uncommon, as Japanese is more contextual.

If you were titillated by the latest reveals from Gamescom, then it seems you will continue to eat well in the coming months.

Zack Fair has an even bigger role in Final Fantasy 7 Revelation, series director Naoki Hamaguchi says

Our new look at Final Fantasy 7 Revelation at Gamescom Opening Night Live was brief, but it did give us our first look at several of the finale's big Weapon fights. After months of speculation, Ruby Weapon, Emerald Weapon, and Ultima Weapon have all made their big debut, and these epic battles are looking spectacular so far.

We caught a brief glimpse of Emerald Weapon during a cutscene in Rebirth, but it appears the creature will play a much bigger role in Revelation, in line with the structure of the original game. Notably, the trailer shows what appears to be a real-time submarine fight against Emerald Weapon, which is certainly an expansion on its original appearance.

You can see all three creatures, and plenty more teasers on what to expect from Revelation, in the trailer below.

While the submarine did factor into the original Emerald Weapon fight in FF7, since it's how you reached the creature in the first place, there wasn't much in the way of direct combat aboard the vehicle. Director Naoki Hamaguchi previously alluded to the possibility of minigames at various points in these big fights, but he also told us that the main combat system would be "at the base" of the important battles. I'd say it's safe to expect that we'll be disembarking the sub to face Emerald Weapon directly by the end.

Notably, this is also our first look at Ultima Weapon (and yes, it's Ultima rather than Ultimate, as it's named in the original game). Fans were previously looking at free-to-play spin-offs for a potential hint at Ultima Weapon's design, but it looks like Revelation's take is a little different from that last iteration. We'll see it in full this spring.

Stay with us for more as the Gamescom 2026 schedule rolls on.

Square Enix has detailed what we can expect from Final Fantasy Resonance's endgame trials, and it's sounding like everything a classic Final Fantasy should have and everything Final Fantasy 16's post-game could've benefited from.

Ahead of Gamescom Opening Night Live, Square Enix dropped a bunch of new screenshots from the first-ever HD-2D game in the series with fresh looks at the RPG's main cast, its gorgeous art style, and some of the classic Final Fantasy characters that can pop up to support you in battle - not yet including the series' most memorable hero, Ariana Grande.

But the most notable bit of info comes from a press kit dedicated to the game's completionist content. Top of the list are optional monsters and secret dungeons dotted across Final Fantasy Resonance's world map. Square Enix says these are completely "unrelated to the main story" and are built for players looking to "test their mettle" in extra-tough battles, per a recent press kit.

Slaying some of those tucked-away monsters will reward you with Magicite, the material that's used to unlock and upgrade those cameo Final Fantasy heroes. Pretty crucial for anyone looking to stock up on nostalgia and buddy up with all of the series' protagonists, then.

We also got new looks at Gilgamesh, the multi-armed swordsman who promises to repeatedly pester us across the adventure in a similar fashion to his recurring role in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. "A final battle awaits on a distinctly big bridge," Square Enix teases.

Then there's the "most formidable of foes" that waits near the end of the game: Ultima Weapon, the superboss that's frequently kicked many a Final Fantasy fan's butt over several decades and games. The fight apparently demands "perfect preparation," and our party will need to be at its best before taking on the massive baddie.

While Square Enix might have shown off a little too much from Final Fantasy Resonance's supposedly "secret" endgame content - I'm hoping for at least one or two superbosses we haven't heard about yet - it's still a major improvement over the last mainline game in the series, Final Fantasy 16, which had me practically starving for a real tough challenge or shocking surprise once the credits rolled. Until its two expansions eventually remedied that, at least.

Final Fantasy Resonance calls back to the JRPG series' most sweat-inducing challenge with the jump rope minigame from Final Fantasy 9

August 11 was Final Fantasy VII protagonist Cloud Strife's birthday, according to Square Enix. While the manual for my original PlayStation copy of Final Fantasy VII says otherwise, I'm always down for celebrating the existence of one of my favorite video game protagonists, particularly one I've been collecting merch and toys for since the game originally launched back in 1997.

Back then, the best toys depicting the spiky-haired boy weren't as easily available as they are now. We had the Extra Knights Action Figure of Cloud and his posse, but finding them in stores was a rarer chance than getting Yuffie as your Gold Saucer companion in the original game. Now, there's a sky full of Cloud-based collectibles, from the Final Fantasy 7 Polygon toy set available for $72 at Square Enix that recreates his in-game model as a tiny figure among the rest of the party, to the massive 1/4 scale Masterline statue that costs $2,400.00 (Amazon), more than my entire Final Fantasy collection (games included) combined.

Do you want a plushie Cloud to hug and help deal with his never-ending trauma? That exists. Want a playmat depicting Cloud about to do some serious damage with his Buster Sword? You can get that too, and I've gathered them all below. If you want to get in on the belated birthday celebrations, there are plenty of Cloud collectibles to spend your hard-earned Gil on, and with Final Fantasy VII Revelation on its way, there's likely even more to come. *Insert fanfare jingle here.*

Want more Final Fantasy goodies? Check out this incoming Final Fantasy Origins of Light board game.

Much of Final Fantasy 7 Revelation remains a mystery, though fans are hoping that the social media activity of a Japanese icon who featured in some of the JRPG's spin-offs is teasing some big plans.

Over on Instagram lately, Japanese musician Gackt has posted an image of himself cosplaying as Genesis Rhapsodos, for whom he provides the inspiration and Japanese voice in the Final Fantasy 7 spin-off games Crisis Core and Dirge of Cerberus. What's more, the song playing in the background of the post appears in Dirge of Cerberus.

The cheeky social media is interesting for a few reasons, though there are some caveats. Gackt's connection to Final Fantasy 7 has been there for a long time, and it's something he often posts about. Looking at his Instagram page, he often posts old clips and performances – some of which include himself dressed up as Genesis. There have been a few times over the years that supposed teases lead to little.

However! Sometimes they do lead to something. As one fan on Twitter notes, just days before the Crisis Core remake was announced, Gackt posted about returning to a studio he hadn't visited in "over ten years" for some voice recording. Hm!

Either way, fans are speculating with excitement. Dirge of Cerberus is yet to get a remake, sure, though something else to consider is the timing, as fans wonder if Genesis might appear as a boss fight in the Remake trilogy's grand finale. Final Fantasy 7 Revelation boss Naoki Hamaguchi has spoken a few times recently about how the spin-off games and Advent Children film tie into the grand finale, and did so recently at Final Fantasy 14's Berlin Fan Fest.

"I see a great deal of that discussion," he said at the time to YouTuber Ashif’s Release Notes. "I've seen a lot of people discussing and speculating off the back of interviews with myself and with Kitase-san, 'Is the ending of this going to connect to Advent Children?'

"But it's not a question. I don't want to sit here and say it connects to this, it connects to that. But obviously, there are a lot of other titles within the VII universe. So, we're talking about Advent Children, we're talking about Dirge of Cerberus, Crisis Core. And we want to bring all of those in and make sure we're not leaving those out."

Hamaguchi goes on to say that "once we have all of those in place, we're looking towards the ending." The question the developers are theoretically asking themselves is "what kind of ending are we going to head for in Revelation that still has those ties?"

Naturally, you'll have to wait for Final Fantasy 7 Revelation to release next year to truly find out, though Gackt's social media activity isn't making the wait any easier.

Final Fantasy 7 Revelation director says each character in the RPG only has 4 jobs because making games is so much harder now.

The long-rumored Final Fantasy 9 remake is currently stalling despite being quite far along – at least for now, according to one report.

In comments made last month that are now doing the rounds of the internet, veteran games journalist Alex Donaldson of RPGsite and recently Respec delves into what's going on with one of the industry's most notoriously unannounced projects.

Per Donaldson, the Final Fantasy 9 project was a single game and was quite far along in development before it eventually ground to a halt. As of right now, the JRPG remake is no longer moving forward.

If you're feeling deflated, though, there is some hope. Donaldson notes that the new mobile Dissidia game was basically canceled for over a year before eventually being revived. Given that Final Fantasy 9's remake project has a lot of work already done, the same could happen here.

Mind you, "illustrations created as potential box art and as key art were just tweeted out for the anniversary," so you might not want to get your hopes up too much.

Donaldson's remarks came as part of a wider discussion of a Final Fantasy 14 Fan Fest panel featuring director and producer Naoki "Yoshi-P" Yoshida and Final Fantasy 7 Revelation lead Naoki Hamaguchi. Not only did Yoshi-P turn heads by saying that remakes of FF6, FF8, and FF9 would need multiple installments, but he also pointed out that fans want Hamaguchi to direct FF17, and what better praise of someone could that be?

In short, per Donaldson, the veteran Final Fantasy 14 boss has a habit of disguising a teaser as speculation.

For example, when showing off the MMO's Dawntrail expansion, he turned a few heads by saying the reason behind the FF9 nods was "a secret." If we're talking about rumored timelines, it's interesting that a Final Fantasy 9 remake was reportedly in the works at that point.

As such, his pointing out how difficult it would be to remake such a game at the moment can read as a soft confirmation that it's too difficult to press ahead with the project right now.

In a similar way, it's noteworthy that he would point out how people would like Hamaguchi to direct the next mainline Final Fantasy game, especially with FF7: Revelation due to wrap up the trilogy next year.

Of course, there's a reason certain projects aren't official: things can change. Games that make sense in one moment don't in the next, so even if something is teased, you might not want to look into something too much until it comes from the source itself.

Final Fantasy 9's own rumored remake is a good example of that in action. We first caught wind of the project as part of an infamous Nvidia leak that's slowly but surely confirmed the plans of many differing developers and publishers. Since then, while we haven't heard anything official from Square Enix, we have received the odd update from outside sources with decent track records.

Just earlier this year, for example, one such source said the JRPG project is on ice.

As ever, take everything you read with a pinch of salt as plans change, accounts conflict, and sometimes a random remark is just that, rather than a tease of what's to come. Still, if you were looking forward to the unannounced Final Fantasy 9 remake actually being announced, you may want to put it to the back of your mind for now.

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth multi-platform push and Final Fantasy 14 Evercold hype give Square Enix a welcome win as profits surge over 88%

Things are looking good for Square Enix at the moment. Thanks in no small part to Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth's staggered launch and Final Fantasy 14 gearing up for a new expansion, the company reported a huge increase in overall profits.

These numbers come from Square Enix's latest financial results, where it says the publisher has seen an 88.6% jump in operating income for the three-month period ending June 30. That's a pretty high margin, to say the least.

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is listed as a specific reason for this, seeing as the blockbuster RPG arrived on Nintendo Switch 2 and Xbox Series X/S in June. It had a "solid performance," according to the report, alongside The Adventures of Eliot: The Millennium Tales.

Staying with Moogles and Chocobos, then, Final Fantasy 14's been putting in a strong shift to boot. We're on the road to the next major expansion, Evercold, and the buzz is being felt in Square Enix's accounting. There's been "improved user activity" in the MMORPG of late, stemming from the " advance recognition" of what's coming.

Eorzea's been a hive of activity in recent months, with the active player count crossing the one million threshold for the first time since early 2025. People are ready for what Evercold has to offer, and they're getting their friends involved ahead of the expansion's rollout.

Of course, besides the MMO's latest chapter, we have Final Fantasy 7 Revelation coming in 2027. I'd expect these numbers to grow again once both of these mammoth releases are available. Just one other question: when's Final Fantasy 17 coming?

Final Fantasy 14 fans discover "Creepypasta Backrooms" area in Patch 7.55, and Square Enix is feeding into the horror: "If you're not careful and you noclip out of reality..."

A previously lost Final Fantasy 7 spin-off game has finally been saved and preserved more than two decades after its initial release.

Dirge of Cerberus - Lost Episode isn't the most well known game in the Final Fantasy 7 compilation. In fact, it's a 'midquel' of sorts to one of the most derided entries in the entire series, squeezing Dirge of Cerberus' shooter gameplay onto a mobile phone and letting us spend even more time with the ever-moody Vincent Valentine. But it's been completely unplayable for years... up until now, that is.

As reported on by Time Extension, video game preservationist Yuvi managed to get their hands on the rare game's data thanks to Naoya Shinota, a member of the feature phone preservation group Keitai Wiki, who just so happened to know a guy who was in possession of Dirge of Cerberus - Lost Episode and was looking to dump their old SD card.

"The only issue is that these SD cards are encrypted," Yuvi writes in their blog post, and the team didn't have access to a "special partition from the SD card to start the brute-force process to find the keys."

"This was the first time we have encountered such an issue, because normally we are the ones who have possession of the SD card, so we could get the secret key needed," Yuvi explains. The solution? Yuvi spent $900 to create a brute-force program and a GPU farm to help get it done.

"Now, I’m not going to lie and say it was still cheap; in total, this endeavour to save one game cost me well over $900 dollars, all said and done. But in my books it was well worth something we may have never had the opportunity of getting again," they write. I'd highly recommend checking out their blog for the full details.

It should be a good primer for Vincent Valentine's next big appearance as a playable character in Final Fantasy 7 Revelation, coming sometime next year.

Final Fantasy 7 Revelation boss says the ending "might be fully faithful to the original" RPG, or "it might end up being something completely different"

Square Enix has confirmed it's looking into the long load times Final Fantasy 14 players are experiencing on Nintendo Switch 2.

Earlier this week, Square Enix finally released its critically acclaimed MMORPG on a Nintendo console for the first time in its near-13-year history and – aside from needing a separate subscription and being the biggest game on the console by a somewhat significant amount – it seems to have turned out quite well.

Over on the game's subreddit, fans are praising the new version, with many calling it the best way to play on a handheld compared to the Steam Deck version. One user says, "The Switch version is a big upgrade over playing it on the Steam Deck. It only runs slightly better on the Switch 2, but the larger, higher-resolution display of the Switch 2 makes a huge difference."

Unfortunately, some players have been experiencing long load times during certain segments when the screen fades to black. In a post on the Final Fantasy 14 website, Square Enix posted, "Our investigation has confirmed that, when a player enters an instanced duty while surrounded by many characters, loading data will take longer than usual, which lasts until the player leaves the instance," before giving a number of examples.

It continues, "We have identified certain cases in which the data reloading and cache clearing processes required for safe rendering are taking an extended amount of time. As such, these processes have been optimized to ensure faster data loading even under similar conditions, and the updated version is currently in testing."

Ultimately though, for a game of this scale, it running as well as it does on Switch 2 is undoubtedly very impressive. And if it weren't for the weird alternate subscription shenanigans, it would be the absolute best way to play in my eyes.

Final Fantasy 7 Revelation director says each character in the RPG only has 4 jobs because making games is so much harder now.

Final Fantasy 7 Remake series director Naoki Hamaguchi has revealed Final Fantasy 7 Revelation is close to completion, and that he's quite confident that it'll hit the mark.

Speaking to YouTube creator Ashif’s Release Notes (via Genki_JPN), Hamaguchi was asked about his approach to helming the Final Fantasy 7 Remake trilogy, as someone who was inspired by the series itself, and while the 12 years he's been working on the project have caused him to feel a massive amount of responsibility and pressure, things have somewhat calmed as he approaches the end.

"Having been able to announce FF7 revelation at SGF, I hope that people out there can look at it and think this looks like it will be pretty good," Hamaguchi says, adding, "As we are now approaching the end, it's nearing completion. I personally can pick it up and play it and think, 'yeah, this feels good; this is satisfying.' So I am quite confident in it."

Of course, with it being the final entry in the Final Fantasy 7 Remake trilogy and coinciding with the original game's 30th anniversary, Revelation has a fair amount riding on it as a release. Hamaguchi acknowledges this: "Of course the final judgment is in the hands of the players... but I feel confident." He adds, "I can see the end. So my honest state at the moment is that I can finally feel that pressure lifting."

Despite some major problems people have with the current remake games, and the weird ending of Rebirth leaving the series on a bit of a rough note for many, it's hard to deny that they are mostly an excellent time. Hopefully the finale lands for everyone, and finally clears up some of the weird remake timeline shenanigans.

Final Fantasy 7 Revelation boss says the ending "might be fully faithful to the original" RPG, or "it might end up being something completely different"

There have been some stark differences between the Final Fantasy 7 Remake trilogy and the original game thus far, and the conclusion could be another place where creative liberties are taken. That said, don't expect any hints from overseer Naoki Hamaguchi, who's playing coy in the hopes people choose to just enjoy the journey instead.

"I have never told any media outlet about what kind of ending Final Fantasy 7 Revelation will have," he tells Automaton.

"I don't want people to focus just on the ending," he adds. "I’m aiming to create a game that will make people feel 'I'm glad they made the Remake series,' or 'I'm glad I was able to see the Final Fantasy 7 Remake series through to the end' when they look back on the whole trilogy."

Considering he and his team will have one PlayStation release into three blockbuster games on modern hardware, I can understand his perspective. That's a decade-plus of development, redesigning, and restructuring the narrative to offer hundreds of hours of gameplay, all while celebrating and maintaining the legacy of a game that shook the industry.

But as we approach the third and final installment, the big question is: Should we expect it to end like the 1997 version, or is Hamaguchi planning the curveball of curveballs? He's saying nothing.

"The ending might be fully faithful to the original, or it might end up being something completely different," he explains. "Or perhaps, it might go in a direction no one could have imagined in the first place. I’d like everyone to experience it for themselves."

Those are big words. The climax of Final Fantasy 7 is right up there when it comes to memorable scenes in the sci-fi adventure. I'd probably place it third behind Sephiroth burning Nibelheim and the death of Aerith in set-pieces that always give me goosebumps.

I mean, Cloud doing Omnislash? And then the lifeforce coming to protect the planet? It's pure cinema. I can't see your final limit break being removed - it's just such a perfectly timed moment - but Hamaguchi hasn't done me wrong yet. I trust him, and I'm ready for what Revelation has to offer.

Final Fantasy 7 Revelation director says each character in the RPG only has 4 jobs because making games is so much harder now

Final Fantasy 14 is finally crossing over with the Final Fantasy 7 Remake trilogy sometime next year, but before the collaboration was set in stone, FF7 Remake director Naoki Hamaguchi was careful to not step over the MMO's patch cadence.

Speaking to GamesRadar+ about the crossover and Final Fantasy 7 Revelation, in an interview from Fan Fest Berlin, Hamaguchi reiterates that developers on the Remake trilogy were "heavily involved" in the upcoming crossover event. Not only is original Final Fantasy 7 writer Kazushige Nojima serving as a story supervisor, the rest of the team is collaborating on assets that'll be used in an Evercold raid series.

What tends to happen when Final Fantasy 7 Remake has a collaboration in the works is that the outside team will get "really excited," Hamaguchi says via a translator, and "come up with all these ideas" that can sometimes be quite lofty. "But at the same time we have to be really careful that it's not impacting the FF14 patch release schedule, because then that would be putting the cart before the horse," he adds.

To make sure things didn't get out of hand, Hamaguchi and Final Fantasy 14's Naoki 'Yoshi-P' Yoshida had to remind their really excited team members to "calm down" and "be reasonable, guys." Hamaguchi remembers telling his devs to "look at our bandwidth to see what's realistic and to make sure that they can do their best work," in order to stop either team from getting too derailed.

Yoshi-P and Hamaguchi were still "running around and touching up everything around the sides, seeing what's going on [and] making sure that everything's in place." That was on top of directing Final Fantasy 14 Evercold and Final Fantasy 7 Revelation, I should add, the mad men.

Final Fantasy 7 Revelation director says each character in the RPG only has 4 jobs because making games is so much harder now

Each character in Final Fantasy 7 Revelation's ragtag party will be able to equip four different classes, called FITS here in this game, and director Naoki Hamaguchi says the process of making them reminded him how tough game development has gotten in recent years.

Final Fantasy 7 Revelation might be remaking the last act of Final Fantasy 7, but it's reaching even further back into Final Fantasy history with a job system called FITS (deep breath, Function Integrated Tactical Suitwear). Each character has four FITS that'll change their combat capabilities and give them a snazzy new outfit - so far, we've only seen Cloud dressed up as a Warrior and TIfa in a Black Mage fit.

"It did make me realize all over again how hard it is to develop games these days. When you look at some of the early Final Fantasy games that have job systems, you could put a lot in there," Hamaguchi tells GamesRadar+ in a recent interview from Final Fantasy 14 Fan Fest Berlin.

He's definitely not wrong. Take Final Fantasy 5, one of the series' classic pixel art games that let you mix-and-match each party member with over 20 jobs. Games have only gotten way more graphically intensive over time, and every playable character in Revelation's cast has their own bespoke animations. A far cry from the days where the pixels that represented an FF5 character all awkwardly shimmy forward to attack.

These days, wanting to have 20 or 30 jobs isn't really feasible for a standalone game, Hamaguchi continues via a translator. In fact, it's "just insanely difficult" unless you're an "ongoing title" that's adding content "bit by bit," as is the case with MMORPG Final Fantasy 14.

Still, the jobs that are available in Final Fantasy 7 Revelation apparently do a lot of heavy lifting to shake up the trilogy's combat. "The FITS system has four different outfits for each character, and each of those is quite a defined role. In the end, that has added quite a lot of breadth of strategy for players to engage with, so I think it has resulted in a really good addition to the battle system," Hamaguchi explains. "Even though we only have four FITS, we have a lot of characters, so it was quite a lot of work."

Final Fantasy 7 Revelation director is "serious about concluding the series" at the end of the JRPG, and any DLC will focus on "untold stories"

Director Naoki Hamaguchi won't leave many loose threads hanging by the time the credits roll in Final Fantasy 7 Revelation, so any purely hypothetical DLC that gets made will need to focus on the "untold stories" of specific characters rather than continuing the story.

This isn't the first time Naoki Hamaguchi's discussed potentially adding to Final Fantasy 7 Revelation after launch next year, but what form that might take has been up in the air. He previously hinted that spin-off games could be folded into the game through DLC.

Speaking to Automaton, Hamaguchi's now clarified that the third and final game in his Final Fantasy 7 Remake trilogy will tie up the story. Don't worry about having to pay for DLC to see the true ending, then - looking at you, Final Fantasy 13-2.

"The story will be concluded within the main game," Hamaguchi promises. "We're serious about concluding the series with FF7 Revelation, and we're proceeding with development with that goal in mind."

Should that hypothetical DLC become really real DLC, Hamaguchi says the team wants to "create a kind of spin-off focused on a specific character that depicts their untold stories," similar to what they did with Final Fantasy 7 Remake's Episode Intermission DLC, which followed Yuffie in a short campaign giving the character depth that definitely wasn't seen in the original game. "So, in case we do end up considering making a DLC, this is the kind of thing that we’d likely attempt to do."

"I feel that, at this point, both the media and the fan community are expecting a DLC to come," he says. "That being said, things haven't crystallized yet, so we can't certainly say." Should there be enough of an appetite for it, the team would certainly consider an expansion, he adds.

The possibilities are kind of endless. Alternate timeline adventures in the Lifestream? Prequels focused on Vincent Valentine or Cid Highwind? A look at Tifa's gruelling, mountain-top training? Something something, young Sephiroth?

Final Fantasy 7 Revelation's endgame fights may involve some minigames, but its director is more interested in using your levelled-up characters to "overcome difficult situations"

The 1997 RPG Final Fantasy 7 is one of the most beloved games of all time, so naturally this decade's remake trilogy has been received, although largely positively, under intense scrutiny. A remake in every sense of the word, three distinct games have been made out of the original one, and Square Enix has been liberal with changes and expansions to the story, combat, world, and minigames, which naturally means fans have been squabbling online about all of the differences for about six years now. Naoki Hamaguchi, director on Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth and Revelation, sees that as a good thing.

Ahead of Final Fantasy 7 Revelation's release next year, Hamaguchi tells Automaton he's "grateful" for the remake trilogy's discourse because it means people care.

"Games are a medium, a community, and a culture. While a culture has certain unchanging aspects, I believe it only truly shapes into a culture when people discuss it from many different perspectives," says Hamaguchi. "If everyone looked at something in exactly the same way, I think it might not leave a lasting impression and could fade into obscurity over time. The very fact that the community is so active, that conversations happen, and debates keep erupting, is a kind of entertainment in and of itself."

I don't know about you, but I'm tickled by the mental image of Hamaguchi browsing Final Fantasy-related subreddits, sipping a cup of coffee, and giggling as his diehard fans argue about impossibly hot fantasy characters with big hair. In more elegant words, Hamaguchi says those heated discussions are proof of passion, which is hard to argue with.

"When people discuss and get heated about the minigames, the story, or the relationships between characters in FFVII, I think that only happens because they see value in those elements," he says. "I'm proud that this series has enough depth and capacity to inspire those kinds of discussions."

Even from game to game in the remake series, there's a lot of variation in terms of gameplay and structure, with the first 2020 entry being far more linear than the massive open world that is Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. Hamaguchi told GamesRadar+ in a recent interview that people "got a little bit tired" of all the side quests in Rebirth and might have "stepped away" in exhaustion, which suggests Revelation could be a little more streamlined.

Final Fantasy 7 Revelation director wants "some kind of physical edition" for the RPG, but he can't promise it as Sony becomes the latest to "shift away" toward digital

Final Fantasy 14 is no horror game, standing as the MMORPG gem of Square Enix's beloved JRPG series – but it sure does have its spooky moments.

If you know the lore behind the Palace of the Dead, you're probably familiar with how creepy Final Fantasy 14 can get – but its environments and atmosphere are arguably not very eerie, even in Deep Dungeons with heart-wrenching backstories like PotD… most of them, anyway.

One Warrior of Light has discovered an area that almost feels like it should be out-of-bounds in the North Horn of the Occult Crescent, and it's spine-chilling.

"I think I found one of the creepiest places SE did in a while," they write, sharing screenshots of their discovery over on Reddit. The spot comes from the MMO's recent Patch 7.55, and appears after players go through a foggy Silent Hill-esque hole in the wall – yes, hole.

"Was wandering in Occult Crescent North Horn and found a hole in the wall and got a big chill in the spine seeing this," as the poster reports.

"Reminded me of some Creepypasta Backrooms shenanigans," they add – and, yeah, I can certainly see why.

Everything is paint-white, floating against a pitch-black background. There are crawling arms reaching for nothing, forming freaky arches. Enemies prowl the strange area in the Occult Crescent, too, which commenters note are formidable foes.

"I visited there today too, and let's just say it's really risky," as one reply reads. "All enemies are rank 40+," the person responding notes – but there are "four silver chests and a survey point inside" to make it worth it.

Amusingly, Square Enix has chimed in with its own amusing comment on the matter as well, writing in its own post, "If you're not careful and you noclip out of reality in the wrong areas, you'll end up in the…"

It's a silly little reference to the Backrooms, but I love it.

Will I explore the area for myself? Honestly, I'm not sure I can be bothered tackling the normal part of the Occult Crescent – but the new Phantom weapon does beckon…

Final Fantasy 14 is great and all, but Yoshi-P would "tackle completely new game designs and values" if he were to make another MMO.

There was a lot to do in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, between the main story and all the myriad side-quests – perhaps an overwhelming amount, even, and trilogy head honcho Naoki Hamaguchi is distinctly aware of that issue while making Final Fantasy 7 Revelation.

"One of the things I think people got a little bit tired of – or maybe that's when they stepped away from the game – was on the world map, there is a lot of content," Hamaguchi tells GamesRadar+ during a recent interview.

"Sometimes you'd get rewards like materia if you finish that content," he explains. "But for those people who just wanted to get those materia or rewards, they might feel like they have to do certain mini-games, even if they don't really want to."

This is the tricky balance of building out a world map. You want to give players things to do, reasons to explore every nook and cranny, but too much and suddenly it all looks like a mess of fairy lights, and you've no idea where to start.

Or, it just feels arbitrary, as is a hurdle I've encountered in Assassin's Creed games as well as Skyrim and other such sprawling role-playing misadventures, where I noticed I was just ticking things off.

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth feels bigger than its predecessor Remake, leaning into the fact we're now away from Midgar, but even with unlocking new magic and abilities, I got a bit fatigued.

His comments make it sound like Revelation will be more curated, perhaps with more variation, either in terms of mini-games and activities, or the things they provide, or both. Bigger isn't inherently better, and I'm relieved to hear Hamaguchi's taken that mindset coming off of Rebirth.

After 2 years, solo Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth modder says fine, I'll do it myself, fixing the JRPG's wonky lighting at long last

Final Fantasy 14 director Naoki "Yoshi-P" Yoshida has big plans for the MMO with its new expansion Evercold – but if he were to work on a separate online game, he might take a bit of a different path than he has with the Square Enix gem.

The beloved lead reveals as much in a new interview with GamesRadar+, first explaining how, for Evercold, he "chose to steer FF14 towards 'change' in pursuit of creating even more enjoyment and evolving further. I felt that, in terms of mindset and time, we were prepared to update the gaming experience to be more enjoyable and comfortable for our players and their lifestyles."

That aligns well with what's to come. After all, there are job changes and tweaks to years-old systems underway with the expansion – changes that I personally can't wait to give a go myself (begone, tomestone hell).

It's not easy to make said changes, though.

"Making sudden changes to try and keep up with that pace can be harmful to our operations, like how making sharp turns while driving fast tends to lead to accidents," as Yoshi-P puts it. "Making these judgment calls is a constant part of overseeing FF14."

That's not to say he'd be making the same calls if he started from the ground up on a brand-new MMO, however. "Incidentally," the Final Fantasy 14 head admits, "if I were to develop a new online live service title from scratch, I'd be challenging myself to tackle completely new game designs and values."

That's certainly got me interested, to say the least.

Now, this obviously isn't an admission of any huge new project or anything like that – but I do wonder what Yoshi-P means here. After all, we're talking about the man who managed to pick the original Final Fantasy 14's pieces out of the ashes and transform them into a rebirth for the MMO with A Realm Reborn.

It's not as though that's a small feat, and the game is still pressing on as one of the genre's greatest to date.

I suppose it'll all remain speculation… unless Yoshi-P ever does give something new a go – although judging by what he's said before regarding working on Final Fantasy for at least another decade, I doubt it's something we'd see anytime soon. But, hey, I'm not complaining.

Final Fantasy 14, Monster Hunter, and Animal Crossing top new survey of games Japanese players have spent the most time on and I can't say I'm surprised.

As exciting as the fight with Sephiroth will be in Final Fantasy 7 Revelation, it's the Weapon battles that I'm most looking forward to. They're going to be glorious spectacles, and according to Naoki Hamaguchi, overseer of the remake trilogy, a true challenge of your skills – with the occasional curveball for good measure.

"Obviously, what we're making is an RPG," Hamaguchi tells GamesRadar+ in a new interview. "One of the things that's fun about RPGs is having the characters you've leveled, you've customized, and you've brought them up where they are, and using them to overcome difficult situations."

For the endgame, the devs wanted to find balance between injecting novelty into the fights against Sapphire, Diamond and the other Weapons, and making them straight-ahead slobberknockers. "Say you had this fight against a Weapon, a giant enemy, or something that's really exciting or cool," he begins.

"And you go into it, and it's just a completely new mechanic or minigame," he continues. "I think there are quite a few players who would come away from that feeling quite disappointed that it wasn't a reflection of the effort that they put into building something up to that point."

I would agree. This will be three games into the re-telling of Final Fantasy 7, and as someone who loves tinkering with his materia and equipment, I like feeling my build succeed over any and every kind of adversity. Sometimes to my own detriment – I have forced myself to complete Darks Souls runs with less than optimal characters because I felt I had something to prove.

I digress. Hamaguchi says the devs "want to have the Final Fantasy 7 Remake series combat system at the base," regardless of what other bells and whistles might be attached to a Weapon encounter. "There may be some minigames involved in parts of them, say at the beginning of one of the fights or something like that, to mix things up a little bit," he comments.

"But the core battle is really focused on the characters that you have come through the rest of the game with as an RPG."

Final Fantasy 7 Revelation director wants "some kind of physical edition" for the RPG, but he can't promise it as Sony becomes the latest to "shift away" toward digital.

A nationwide survey asking Japanese players which games they've spent the most time in is both super surprising and exactly what you'd expect. Massive evergreen giants such as Final Fantasy 14 and Animal Crossing New Horizons topping the list was definitely predictable, but I'm also kind of stunned to see a rogue PSP Monster Hunter game come dangerously close to the top spot.

A new survey of 5,400 people published in Famitsu magazine (shared online by Genki) has now revealed a list of the 20 most time-consuming games people in Japan have lost hours, days, or even months to. Most of the list won't surprise you – heck, there's a good chance you've also enjoyed some of them for ages – but there's also a few strays that'll definitely make you blink too hard.

Here's the full list in order:

1. Final Fantasy 14
2. Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G
3. Final Fantasy 11
4. Animal Crossing New Horizons
5. Dragon Quest 10 Online
6. Minecraft
7. Apex Legends
8. Final Fantasy 7
9. Splatoon 2
10. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
11. Genshin Impact
12. Monster Hunter World
13. Fortnite
14. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
15. Splatoon 3
16. Ragnarok Online
17. Fate/ Grand Order
18. Granblue Fantasy
19. The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim
20. Dragon Quest 3

Three Final Fantasies, a bunch of gachas, a handful of open-world RPGs, and a couple live-service shooters? Yeah, that checks out pretty perfectly.

In particular, critically acclaimed MMORPG Final Fantasy 14 coming out on top is perhaps the most predictable outcome of all. You could squash a couple already-mammoth single-player RPGs together, and they still wouldn't match up to the quality content on offer in Square Enix's seemingly immortal online world, which is only gearing up to get even bigger with next year's Evercold expansion.

What's more interesting are the few surprises here. Take Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G, a PSP game that's far from the series' most popular entry but still managed to secure a second place finish. Curiously, there's no Pokemon representation here at all, and only four games on the list come from publishers based in the USA: Fortnite, Minecraft, Apex Legends, and good old Skyrim.

Final Fantasy 14 Evercold changes housing for the better, Yoshi-P says, and World of Warcraft's "amazing" take on the MMO staple has "been a good source of research."

It's finally happening. The Final Fantasy 7 Remake series is coming to Final Fantasy 14.

Over the last decade, its addition felt like a question of when rather than if. Final Fantasy 14 is designed, in part, to be a theme park that pays tribute to the wider series, with references and nods aplenty. We've seen plenty of crossovers over the years – from Final Fantasy 16 and Nier to other franchises like Monster Hunter – and Final Fantasy 14's own producer and director Naoki 'Yoshi-P' Yoshida has spoken about the possibility before, saying the timing needed to be right.

So how did it finally happen, and why now, exactly? Speaking to Final Fantasy 7 Revelation boss Naoki Hamaguchi at Final Fantasy 14's Berlin leg of Fan Fest, it's one of the first questions I ask.

Hamaguchi tells me that discussions kicked off about a year ago during a conversation with Yoshi-P about the release dates for Evercold and Revelation, and it all went from there.

"Is there something we can do to use the fact that they're close together to bring some energy to the Final Fantasy franchise as a whole?" Hamaguchi tells us of the question he and Yoshi-P pondered. "That's really how things started."

Have you heard of . . .

Fast forward to today, and we have a better idea of what that collaboration looks like. Final Fantasy 14 is getting a Final Fantasy 7-themed raid called Beyond the Lifestream that involves the supervision of veterans of the OG JRPG – that being, writer Kazushige Nojima and the man responsible for Cloud's look, Tetsuya Nomura. Amusingly, Final Fantasy 14's version of the Gold Saucer is getting a revamp to look more like it does in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, complete with a typing game that'll get an FF7 theme to start.

Speaking to his own role in the collaboration, Hamaguchi says that, similar to Yoshi-P, he's there to guide the team's excitement into something realistic and achievable. "We have to be really careful that it's not impacting the [Final Fantasy] 14 patch release schedule," he says, "because then we're putting the cart before the horse."

As for what a successful collaboration looks like, Hamaguchi says Final Fantasy 7 fans jumping into Final Fantasy 14 and becoming Warriors of Light would be great, especially if Evercold and the crossover brought some of that momentum to the launch of Final Fantasy 7 Revelation itself. "I suppose the ultimate aim is to see that throughline of excitement and enjoyment," Hamaguchi adds.

There's certainly a solid sense of anticipation around both games already. Final Fantasy 14's Evercold reveal has certainly left some of the MMO heads on this very website feeling hopeful, and Hamaguchi tells me it's been "really wonderful" to see players pick up Final Fantasy Remake and Rebirth on PC, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch 2 following the reveal of Revelation.

Duty complete

Of course, excitement can lead to additional pressure. Final Fantasy 7 Revelation is the final entry in a trilogy that essentially splits one game into three. While I enjoyed what Rebirth offers in terms of combat and the open world, I ask Hamaguchi how the team is freshening up the game, especially in light of his recent comments about open-world fatigue.

Hamaguchi tells me there are two ways in which they're doing that. The first is adding a greater sense of exploration to the world map. Pointing to the Grasslands in Final Fantasy Rebirth, Hamaguchi says it's very large and expansive, but also very "flat."

The remedy is more verticality. Hamaguchi can't reveal everything, though he does say you can dive into the map from the Highwind, and your chocobo will also be able to fly, which Hamaguchi hopes will make "certain parts less frustrating."

Another way the Final Fantasy 7 Revelation team is keeping things fresh is by making sure the "goal and reward" of side content is clearer, especially following feedback from Rebirth.

"One of the things I think people got a little bit tired of – or maybe that's when they stepped away from the game – was on the world map, there is a lot of content," Hamaguchi says. "And sometimes you'd get rewards like materia if you finish that content. But for those people who just wanted to get those materia or rewards, they might feel like they have to do certain mini-games, even if they don't really want to."

To remedy this, Hamaguchi says that content in Final Fantasy 7 Revelation will match the reward to what you're doing – rewards that'll aid you in battle will be achieved through battle, a new Queen's Blood card will be earned through Queen's Blood, and so on. The hope is that the clarity will allow players to ignore the content they don't want to engage with.

Finding the right FITS

When it comes to combat, one of Final Fantasy 7 Revelation's standout new features is the FITS system – that being, Function Integrated Tactical Suitwear. It essentially acts as a new job system that allows the likes of Cloud and Tifa to play as something like a Black Mage as opposed to the brawlers people might typically typecast them as.

Despite the visual flair of a new outfit, Hamaguchi says the biggest influence on the new feature was the job system as a Final Fantasy staple overall, though he can't say there was "zero influence" taken from the likes of Final Fantasy X-2 or Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy 13.

The new feature hasn't been without its troubles, though, as Hamaguchi jokes that adding the FITS system reminded him about "how hard it is to develop games these days."

"When you look at some of the early Final Fantasy games that have job systems, you could put a lot in there," Hamaguchi says. And while the developers behind ongoing games like Final Fantasy 14 have done "fantastic work" in adding a variety of classes over the years, bringing something like 20-30 classes to a standalone title at launch would be "insanely difficult."

Hamaguchi also jokes that, while there are many open-world games out there, few allow your party to follow you around. "Even though we only have four FITS, we have a lot of characters, so it was quite a lot of work."

Another thing that makes Final Fantasy 7 Revelation stand out from the other two installments is a proper endgame. While players seeking a challenge in Final Fantasy 7 Remake and Rebirth are typically directed towards playing NewGame+, Revelation brings the challenge to your first playthrough, ready to tackle once you're powerful enough to do so.

Being the third entry in a trilogy, I ask Hamaguchi how the team is using that to shape how it's approaching the endgame and anticipated moments like fighting superbosses like Ruby and Emerald Weapon.

"Obviously, what we're making is an RPG," Hamaguchi answers. "And I think one of the things that's fun about RPGs is having the characters you've leveled, you've customized, and you've brought them up where they are, and using them to overcome difficult situations.

"So, say you had this fight against a Weapon, a giant enemy, or something that's really exciting or cool. And you go into it, and it's just a completely new mechanic or mini-game. I think there are quite a few players who would come away from that feeling quite disappointed that it wasn't a reflection of the effort that they put into building something up to that point.

"But the general goal for our team when we're thinking about making these Weapon fights is that we want to have the Final Fantasy 7 Remake series combat system at the base. What we've been building up over these three games. Perhaps there'll be some extra gadgets, some other things adding something new and unique to the Weapon battle, but we want to have that foundation there as well.

"So there may be some mini-games involved in parts of them, say at the beginning of one of the fights or something like that, to mix things up a little bit. But the core battle is really focused on the characters that you have come through the rest of the game with as an RPG."

On the case

While there are plenty of exciting developments within Final Fantasy 7 Revelation itself, those unfolding outside of the game and Square Enix are difficult to ignore. As Final Fantasy 7 Revelation nears completion, one of the more prominent conversations currently occurring across the industry is about physical media. Rockstar made headlines when it was revealed that GTA 6 would be a code-in-a-box at launch, though Sony's call to end PlayStation disc production in 2028 has swiftly dwarfed that in online chatter.

Given some of the conversations I've seen in Final Fantasy 7's fandom about whether Revelation will release on a physical disc, I ask Hamaguchi for his thoughts on the topic and whether there's any news he can share.

Hamaguchi starts by saying that some of his thoughts have been touched upon as part of Nintendo Switch 2's game-key cards – you can read about that here, as part of an interview we did with Hamaguchi last year. He then says that, as a developer and as a fan, it seems to be the trend that we're shifting away from physical to digital.

When it comes to his personal feelings, though, Hamaguchi says he's a fan of physical media, and events like Final Fantasy 14 Fen Fest are one of the many reasons why.

"I really think that people bringing up things, asking for autographs – I think that's lovely," he tells us. "I think it's a wonderful culture and it would be a shame to lose that. I want that to remain."

As for his personal prediction of where things go from here, Hamaguchi says he feels that "there will always be some kind of physical or packaged edition, even if download codes become the main way that games work."

"I feel like there will always be something," Hamaguchi says, "and I hope there will be."

Looking ahead to Final Fantasy 7 Revelation, Hamaguchi says the team is "still having internal discussions on what the exact SKU product lineup is going to be," so he can't say anything "definitive" at the time of writing. That said, he is trying his best to "allow us to have some kind of physical edition."

"Obviously, say, if you're talking to Nintendo, there's considerations about the storage limits on key cards and things like that, and then other platforms about how much you can put onto a disc," Hamaguchi explains. "Each platform and first-party have their own specific rules and regulations that we need to take into account, and think about what format is actually going to be best for the game.

"These are the discussions that we're having at this point in time. I do hope that we'll be able to come up with something that is as close as possible as to what players and fans are going to want, but you'll have to look forward to future announcements for that."

Given that Final Fantasy 7 marked the series' debut on disc, it's certainly odd to think of a different FF7 game going without. That said, Final Fantasy 7 launched on disc because the cartridge was no longer the best format for the game, and these days, given Square Enix's own strategy pivot, that would mean making the game as accessible as possible across multiple platforms. As the industry settles into a way of working that's more about getting the most out of average hardware rather than pushing hardware's limits further, it'll be interesting to see what compromises Final Fantasy 7 Revelation can manage.

Still, I remain cautiously optimistic for what Final Fantasy 7 Revelation brings. Rebirth improved on Remake in a big way that has me curious to see what part three of the trilogy has in store, and everything we've seen and heard so far hits the right notes.

"I want this guy to make Final Fantasy 17": Yoshi-P embarrasses Final Fantasy 7 Remake lead with the "highest praise you can get" from players live on stage at FF14 Fan Fest.

Final Fantasy 7 Revelation launches early in 2027, a year ahead of the planned end of physical PlayStation discs. But given the broader shift the industry is making toward digital games – GTA 6 is certainly the most prominent example – you'd be forgiven for wondering if the final part of the remake trilogy is going to be part of that all-digital future that so many of us are dreading.

While Square Enix has not yet made the final decision on whether Final Fantasy 7 Revelation will launch on a disc, director Naoki Hamaguchi tells GamesRadar+ that he's actively pushing for it. In an interview at the recent Final Fantasy 14 Fan Festival in Berlin, he explains the challenges facing physical media these days.

"We're still having internal discussions on what the exact SKU product lineup is going to be for Revelation," Hamaguchi explains, "so I can't say anything particularly definitive at this point in time. But I am working to make the arrangements to allow us to have some kind of physical edition."

That's the most concrete bit of the answer, but Hamaguchi also offered some of his philosophy on physical media during our interview. "I do feel, as a developer and as a fan, that the general trend is for things to shift away from physical towards downloadable games," he says.

"But that's obviously talking about the trend. Personally, here at something like Fan Fest or at community events for games that I've worked on, I really think that people bringing up things, asking for autographs – I think that's lovely. I think it's a wonderful culture and it would be a shame to lose that. I want that to remain."

For his part, Hamaguchi believes that even if we lose proper game discs, he feels like "there will always be some kind of physical or packaged edition." Hamaguchi suggests, "Maybe you'll have a box with the code inside it, or maybe key cards like Nintendo's doing, or a boot disc or something. I feel like there'll always be something, and I hope there will be."

The Final Fantasy 7 remake series, of course, hearkens back to the PS1 era, where the idea of a game coming on not just one disc but several felt like an indicator of an epic adventure. Final Fantasy 7 Remake itself came on multiple discs when it launched on PS4, just as Rebirth did on its PS5 launch. While many publishers are content to offer discs with basic installers for meaty games, forcing you to download the rest online, the FF7 remake trilogy has, so far, gone above and beyond to give disc fans a premium experience.

"Obviously, say, if you're talking to Nintendo, there's considerations about the storage limits on key cards and things like that, and then other platforms about how much you can put onto a disc," Hamaguchi explains. "Each platform and first-party have their own specific rules and regulations that we need to take into account, and think about what format is actually going to be best for the game. These are the discussions that we're having at this point in time. I do hope that we'll be able to come up with something that is as close as possible as to what players and fans are going to want, but you'll have to look forward to future announcements for that."

But Hamaguchi knows how fans are going to react if he tells a media outlet like us that he wants to release Revelation in a physical format. "If you publish this, and then we announce all the products later and there is no physical edition, then they're going to rip me to pieces," he says with a laugh.

Naoki Hamaguchi talks Final Fantasy 7 Revelation, Final Fantasy 14, and physical media plans: "It's a wonderful culture and it would be a shame to lose that."

Final Fantasy 9 isn't a PS2 game, but I've just noticed my PS2 memory card has a Final Fantasy save that looks like it has the wrong text. It's actually taken me 20 years to realise that the tiny low-res icon looks like it belongs to the earlier PS1 RPG, and there's a very silly reason why it looks that way.

You see, I've been messing around with an upscaler that solves jittery PS2 visuals using motion-adaptive interlacing. It'll also scale up any retro console that supports RGB output, but it's the systems that rely on interlaced graphics that benefit most from the gizmo.

While the GBS-C's motion-adaptive deinterlacing does an excellent job weaving separated horizontal fields together into a static frame, it's far from perfect. For the most part, you won't notice anything out of sorts, but after sharing a quick photo of my old PS2 memory card screen running through the upscaler, I received comments asking, "What's with the Final Fantasy "9" save icon?"

I originally figured the internet at large was getting its Final Fantasy roman numerals mixed up, but soon realised my old save really looks like it says "Final Fantasy IX" over the villainous Judge Gabranth sprite. Trust me when I say I squinted at the tiny icon for a solid 10 minutes on my actual display rather than through my hastily snapped photo, and I'm pretty certain the pixels read "IX" rather than "XII."

I'll admit, I started to get excited that Square Enix had somehow managed to typo its Final Fantasy 12 save icon art, or that there was perhaps another more interesting developmental reason for the blip. That was before I realized this was very likely a symptom tied to deinterlacing a low-resolution icon, and it all ties back to the way low-res CRTs used to work.

Here's the thing: the text on the Final Fantasy 12 logo on the memory card grid isn't meant to be legible. If you really want to get a good look at it, you can press X and bring up the full rotating 3D rendered model along with the copy and delete menu. What you're actually seeing before that is a version compressed to very few pixels that, when displayed on a CRT at the mercy of interlacing, pixel bleed, and phosphor glow, still vaguely looks like "Final Fantasy XII" at a normal distance.

When you take that same icon, blow it up on a modern screen using nearest-neighbour upscaling and deinterlacing techniques, you end up with distorted pixels. It just so happens that, in the case of Final Fantasy 12, it warps its roman numerals to look like they belong to a different game in the series, which serves as an eye-catching example of an upscaling caveat.

Using a "line doubler" like the OSSC stands a better chance of accurately representing even the lowest pixel text on the PS2, but you still end up with something that doesn't read like the full-resolution text. I suspect Bob de-interlacing still distorts the pixels in the same way regardless, changing their alignment to a completely different numeral, but I can't speak for more expensive FPGA-powered devices by the likes of RetroTink.

Big whoop, I hear you cry. Why should you remotely care about a few distorted pixels on an old PS2 memory card screen? I'll admit that I don't think this is a reason not to upscale your PlayStation 2, but I want to record the incident so no one gets the wrong idea.

I previously went searching to see if anyone had reported their Final Fantasy 12 PS2 memory card save showing the wrong thumbnail text, just in case there was a more elaborate reason. Immediately, I was rushed with Google AI claims that it's likely a "placeholder left over from development," which isn't remotely the case.

Therefore, this is me taking the opportunity to pre-empt any weird theories on why it looks like the PS2 memory card icon reads "Final Fantasy IX", as all it takes is someone to regurgitate AI nonsense to circulate falsified history. At the same time, this does help highlight how retro console upscaling technology works and why it will struggle to provide the exact same look as an old CRT TV, and while quirks like this aren't remotely a biggie, it could influence your setup plans.

• PS2 memory cards at Amazon
• Retro upscalers at Amazon

Swing by the best retro handhelds for portable emulators you can take on your travels.

A solo modder has taken matters into their own hands and put out a new Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth mod aiming to tackle the game's long-standing lighting issues – and the results are incredible, judging by side-by-side comparisons.

Modder David 'dddd5' Matos put out the Shader Injector mod for Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth late last month (and recently updated it with a couple fixes). Since then, it's only gained more and more traction with fans.

"Framework allowing injection of modified shaders into the rendering API," the modder explains on NexusMods. "Comes with modified game shaders that improve lighting/shadow quality of the game significantly."

The tech experts at Digital Foundry also gave the mod a look and concluded the game's wonky lighting is much better across the board. Some areas, such as the glowing Gold Saucer, are "totally transformed with much better correspondence between the scene and its reflection," according to the outlet. Several comparison shots show dramatic differences between the modded and unmodded versions of the game, too.

For context, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is a mostly handsome game that's still plagued with a few odd lighting issues. Many light sources don't cast shadows at all, in-game foliage often lacks shadows, some shadows are really low quality, and lighting on character faces generally looks pretty weird in outside environments.

"The overexposure in this game was f****** unbearable," one player writes over on Reddit.

"It's so impressive how much better the lighting looks with this mod in most cases," another says. "Even the performance version which only costs a few frames."

The next instalment in the series, Final Fantasy 7 Revelation, comes out sometime next year. Here's hoping it launches in tip top shape.

Final Fantasy 7 Revelation director says "open-world fatigue" is real, and since "the world is even bigger than it was in Rebirth," Square Enix specially focused on guiding players.