How ‘Final Fantasy VII Revelation’ Strikes the Balance Between Old and New

If you're on the brink of completing one of the most ambitious projects in video game history, you're probably stressed. If said project is the decade-spanning Final Fantasy VII Remake trilogy, a ground-up rebuild and drastic expansion of one of the most influential games of the last 30 years, you’d probably be even more anxious.

Naoki Hamaguchi doesn’t seem stressed, though. When I ask the Square Enix studio head and game director how he’s feeling as the release of Final Fantasy VII Revelation draws near, capping a series he’s worked on for over a decade, the only reply is a wry “I was just so focused, it really felt like it passed in a flash.”

Hamaguchi’s calm demeanor is all the more surprising given the weight of expectation surrounding the project. The original Final Fantasy VII, released on Sony's PlayStation in 1997, was a pop-cultural phenomenon—not the Japanese-RPG series’ first Western release, but undeniably its breakthrough title; one that arrived right as gaming was growing out of its kids-only niche and into a mainstream medium.

It’s still regarded as one of the best Final Fantasy entries, and its tale of reluctant hero Cloud Strife and his scrappy band of eco-warrior friends battling an all-powerful corporation destroying the planet is more relevant than ever.

Don’t Call It a Comeback

A remake has been brewing since the PlayStation 2 era, and even teased with a cinematic tech demo alongside the PS3 reveal. Yet when Final Fantasy VII Remake finally arrived in 2020, toward the end of the PS4’s lifespan, it came with a twist—this wasn’t the same game with modern visuals and mechanics, but rather a glimpse of an alternate reality, one where events could potentially play out differently.

The idea was expanded on in 2024’s second chapter, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, which saw characters hopping between timelines—but Hamaguchi is keen not to label it his attempt at a Marvel Cinematic Universe–style Final Fantasy VII multiverse.

“When we started approaching these things, seven years or more ago, I don't believe there were so many other pieces of media tackling those same themes at the time,” Hamaguchi laughs. “We don't really tend to use the word ‘multiverse’—we talk about [the story being] ‘multilayered.’ Actually, the word that comes up most often is ‘reunion.’”

That word may resonate with fans of the original, where test subjects experimented on using cells from an alien named Jenova, including Sephiroth, were drawn to each other (and that’s the shortest possible explanation).

Does that hint at where Revelation’s increasingly complex, layered narrative may be heading, with cosmic variations on Final Fantasy VII’s events all merging? Hamaguchi won’t be drawn, but offers that developer Square Enix is “looking at it from the perspective of these layers coming back together and reuniting—quite a unique perspective within the lore that we have.”

Build Back Bigger

Other lore changes include the vastly expanded three-act structure of the Remake trilogy, which allows—or sometimes necessitates—reshuffling characters, locations, and events, placing many out of sequence from the original.

One of the biggest examples is the nation of Wutai, home of Yuffie, a teenage ninja who becomes an ally to Cloud. In the original game, she was an optional recruitable character, and Wutai was two huts on the world map, with only a few screens worth of houses and temples to explore when players entered it. In Revelation, it’s vast. This Wutai is a thriving city with people to talk to and secrets to uncover; you’ll even need to use Chocobos (Final Fantasy’s signature yellow bird mounts) to explore. It’s also somewhere players can actually believe is caught in a war with Midgar, the urban megalopolis where Remake took place. A lot more is going on here than there was back in 1997.

Some may think that holding Wutai (and Rocket Town, another key location) back for the third Remake entry was a way to pad out the equivalent of the original version’s third disc, which mainly left players to mop up side quests and chase down some optional boss battles before the finale. However, Hamaguchi says the opposite was true—even after two 100-plus hour previous games, he was worried about how much was still left to fit into Revelation.

“I did see people online talking about things after Rebirth, saying, ‘Are you going to have enough to fill up another game? What's gonna happen?’” he says. “I was sat there like, ‘No, this is the opposite problem!’ I'm looking at everything we've still got to put in, and how are we going to get it in there? We actually had to be quite careful with what we put in there to avoid having too much content.”

Endless Fantasy

Revelation may still feel crammed, though. It brings in the final two playable characters from the original game, aeronaut Cid Highwind and were-beast gunman Vincent Valentine, expanding party options and battle combos. It also adds its own twist on the memorable Emerald, Ruby, and Ultima Weapon super-boss battles—incredibly challenging fights against literally god-tier foes, often with strict constraints to test players’ skills.

Along with the sizable new areas, the world is far more open, with returning locations from the prior two games promising extra story avenues and battles to pursue when revisited. Players can soar the skies in Cid’s airship, the Highwind (points for personal branding), before parachuting back down to explore further. “I'm not sure if there's anything other than Revelation that is really an open world on a truly ‘world’ scale, on a planetary scale,” Hamaguchi boasts.

On top of that, Hamaguchi has previously said it may take multiple playthroughs to see everything in the game. That might sound like a daunting time sink to some, but Hamaguchi isn’t fazed. “Personally, I don't have any reservations," he says. "I do understand that there were some people who said there's too much content in Rebirth, but I think essentially that boils down to preference.” Variety matters more than volume, though, and Hamaguchi says the scale has expanded with diverse gameplay.

There are a few olive branches for players who like their games big but not all-consuming, though. That multiple-playthrough requirement will take the form of a chapter select, so you can revisit specific scenes and see events from different perspectives. Rebirth's notoriously difficult and often repetitive trophy requirements are also being toned down, but Hamaguchi says “that's not to say that the achievements are easy—not just anyone is going to be able to get all of them.”

The Next Generation

If there’s one thing Hamaguchi actively does want to change with Final Fantasy VII Revelation, it’s players’ perspectives on what Final Fantasy fundamentally is. Even though the series has evolved over the years—to the point where 2023’s Final Fantasy XVI was more of an action game than an RPG—outsiders often still see it as staid and formulaic.

“I think that a lot of people have the image or preconception about the Final Fantasy series, that it tends to be quite story-focused,” Hamaguchi says. “That is, of course, fantastic, but I also wanted to really showcase the gameplay and to show that Final Fantasy as a franchise, as a series, could stand alongside other open-world titles that are really celebrated for their gameplay, and I thought that would bring in more fans.”

“Showcase” seems right—although my playtest of Revelation barely scratched the surface, there’s clearly a panoply of stuff to do at every turn, with almost every activity offering a fresh way to engage with the world. Yet for long-term fans, warm nostalgia weaves through, as with the new “Function Integrated Tactical Suitwear” system. This fashion-focused (clock the acronym) tweak to the combat system lets players dress the cast as RPG character classes from the pre-FF7 games—think Knights, White Mages, Summoners, and sundry other Final Fantasy figures—allowing for extraordinary customization over who you bring into battle and how they function. It feels retro but modern, and just one way Revelation writes a love letter to the whole series.

A balance of old and new feels like the perfect capstone for a project like the Remake trilogy, celebrating the industry-shaking original Final Fantasy VII while shaping the franchise's future. More importantly, it’s already attracting the people who will help build it.

“It's been over 10 years since the Remake announcement now, and I’m starting to come across people who are saying ‘Final Fantasy 7 Remake inspired me to get into the games industry,’” Hamaguchi says. “They're coming up now, and they're saying, ‘I want to make Final Fantasy, I have these ideas.’ I think that's wonderful. Nothing could make me happier, and I'll just keep trying my best on the cutting edge to push things forward.”