Final Fantasy VII PC will not have microtransactions

A wave of groans followed theinitial discoveryof Square Enix's plans torerelease Final Fantasy VIIon the PC, but today those should be subsided a little bit. Square Enix confirmed to Kotaku today that the title will not use microtransactions despite earlier indications to the contrary.

The initial discovery of the re-release came with the realization that SE mentioned that players would be able to buff their characters or buy Phoenix Downs "with the click of a button." Many assumed (and justly so) that this indicated a plan to include microtransactions or a pay-to-win strategy for the game.

"No, the Character Booster will not cost real money to use," a Square Enix representative said to Kotaku. "We'll have final pricing info on the game to share soon, but we can confirm that there will be no microtransactions for the upcoming rerelease of Final Fantasy VII on PC."

So while this does indicate that Square Enix will not be trying to squeeze extra pennies out of customers, there still remains the issue of fundamentally altering the balance of a classic game. We don't know the specific details yet, but it still sounds like they're turning this into a Final Fantasy VII sight-seeing tour. We're not sure how we feel about that.

Andrew Groen

Andrew is a freelance video game journalist, writing for sites like Wired and GamesRadar. Andrew has also written a book called EMPIRES OF EVE: A History of the Great Wars of EVE Online.