The Final Fantasy 7 Remake trilogy intends to pull the entire FF7 story into its gravitational orbit, series director Naoki Hamaguchi says, so expect even more extended universe references and characters and concepts to show up in Final Fantasy 7 Revelation.
"Well, at this time it's best not to say whether Cissnei will appear or not," Naoki Hamaguchi teases at a recent Q&A event in Shanghai when asked about the side character who first appeared in the PSP prequel, Final Fantasy 7: Crisis Core, and then made a surprise reappearance in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. "But there is one thing I can tell you." (Thanks for the translation, Genki.)
"This Final Fantasy 7 Remake series is not simply a recreation of the original work, but rather, our goal is to create a single, new Final Fantasy 7 that incorporates the settings and concepts of all the previous spin-off titles such as Advent Children, Dirge of Cerberus, and Crisis Core," he adds, also pointing to the Dirge of Cerberus characters who pop up in the Intergrade DLC.
"So, since that concept will of course carry over into Revelation as well, not limited to Cissnei, for the last entry, there will be characters that have appeared in the various FF7 compilation games that I think will be there," Hamaguchi says, "and each of these characters has a large and dedicated fanbase, so we want to create a work that can satisfy the feelings of those people."
There you have it – Hamaguchi has previously been a little coy about how heavily Revelation will touch on compilation games, but it's now as good as confirmed.
Cloud and his party's world has expanded greatly in the three decades since their original clash with Sephiroth, as Square Enix has bolted on prequels and sequels and everything in-between to keep its cash cow milking. What's interesting is that Hamaguchi is potentially walking on thorny territory by folding slightly divisive projects into the ongoing remake.
Take PS2 shooter Dirge of Cerberus, a game most people agreed was middling when it came out 20 years ago and a game that hasn't received a big re-evaluation since. Animated sequel film Advent Children didn't fare much better, though it definitely has its fans nowadays.
The Final Fantasy 7 Remake games haven't exactly been strict when (kind of) retelling the original story, however. At least, so far, it seems like the Remake series is more a very liberal, alternate universe sequel to the original game rather than a straight one-to-one copy of it. Hamaguchi's also teased that any potential DLC could involve certain spin-offs, too.
We'll see how deep the references go when Final Fantasy 7 Revelation comes out on PC, PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and Switch 2 sometime next year.
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