Summary

• Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth will utilize the full capabilities of the PlayStation 5, including seamless transitions and fast travel.
• The game features a larger and more open world, with challenging combat encounters that can be completed with any party formation.
• Rebirth includes a wide variety of mini-games, some of which will be more involved than their counterparts in the original FF7, such as Chocobo Racing.

The highly anticipated Remake already altered the original FF7's events, and Rebirth is expected to widen the gap between the seemingly parallel narratives.

While Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is a bona fide PlayStation 5 exclusive, its gameplay is largely a broadening of Remake's scope. Setting out from Midgar into the expansive wilds of Gaia, Cloud Strife and company are searching for Sephiroth in what will be an expansive RPG. While Rebirth's map is not contiguous, a number of sprawling zones achieve a significant breadth compared to the practical linearity of Midgar in Remake. Other new feature highlights include customizable party formations, new playable characters, and Queen's Blood, a collectible card game with opponents across Gaia.

After having the opportunity to play the game's first two chapters, Screen Rant talked with Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth director Naoki Hamaguchi and translator Hinano Akiyama about creating the game specifically for the PS5, new playable characters like Sephiroth and Cait Sith, and modernizing the original FF7's beloved mini-games

Director Naoki Hamaguchi On Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth

I’m curious if developing Rebirth for only the PlayStation 5 has changed how you go about deg, or if it’s allowed you to do anything that you weren’t able to in Remake.

Naoki Hamaguchi: In regard to the Remake, while it was also released for PS5, this was derived from the PS4 version, so I would say it wasn’t quite completely optimized for the PS5 specs, and so this time around, we fully utilized the high-speed SSD to the maximum capabilities. With that, we created our own streaming system in order to allow seamless transition between this more expanded world as players travel and traverse through the regions. This also made the instantaneous scene changes for the fast travel possible as well, so I do think, in that way, the full capabilities of the PS5 have been utilized for Rebirth.

I noticed that the com from Remake had been taken away in favor of a minimap. Did you feel that that was a necessary change with the different design of the game world?

Naoki Hamaguchi: I do believe that choosing between a minimap or a com is actually a form of personal preference for individual s, and for Rebirth, we actually make it an option to be able to select either of these two according to which kind of area you’re in. You might be traveling through the world map, or you might be in a dungeon, so depending on the circumstance, one may choose to use one over the other, and so you have that choice in the options menu.

Going along with the game just generally being larger – it’s obviously much more open-ended than Remake was. Does it make it more difficult to design combat encounters when there are so many more party formations, or the different times when players could come across certain encounters?

Naoki Hamaguchi: In of whether it was more challenging, I suppose, yes, in a way it was more so than in Remake, but to kind of explain how I approach enemy balance: depending on the party formation when going up against an enemy, that battle may be challenging or perhaps not as challenging, with me ensuring that whatever party formation you go in with, the player is going to have this really fulfilling battle that’s not going to feel like they didn’t have to try at all or was too challenging.

So, in that way, it created more areas where the team had to review, and sort of check these parts – it was more challenging. In of the characters, the positioning of each character – as in, if they’re more of a defender or an attacker – was solidified early on by battle director [Teruki Endo], and so that was pretty much intact. For some characters, however, like Red XIII, he’s sort of both, a defending and attacking type of character, so in that way, the players have a wide degree of freedom in choosing which characters to use in battle when strategizing. In that sense, there were many more areas for us to review and check.

When you say review and check in that way, does that include making sure that even the most challenging boss battles, for instance, can be completed with any party formation, or are there certain encounters where certain characters will be ideal?

Naoki Hamaguchi: For reviewing and checking, we would play through the game a large number of times, going through the story with a different main party formation each time, and look for areas in which suddenly it becomes very easy to defeat bosses or enemies. Then we would focus on those parts to try and adjust and make it so they are not so easy in that formation. Or if certain character skills were way too powerful, those are areas that we would also look into. So, for the last year or so of development I’d say, we’d work those out with the battle director, Endo-san.

Speaking of playable characters, Sephiroth being controllable is a big one – and it’s understandable if you can’t talk about it yet – but it seems like creating a whole new move set for one character for just an intro mission is a lot to undertake. Is he going to come back and be playable later in the game?

Naoki Hamaguchi: Actually, that’s a very interesting point, and that’s precisely something that’s pointed out numerous times by media – you know, “will we ever see Sephiroth again within Rebirth?” At this point, we are unable to disclose anything further, but hearing a lot of these opinions from media… that’s a very interesting thing to consider.

Aside from Sephiroth, which of the new playable characters are you most excited for players to get their hands on? I think Cait Sith and Red XIII are the only other new ones? And Yuffie, not counting INTERmission, of course.

Naoki Hamaguchi: While all of the characters are really designed in a way that each has its own unique characteristic and appeal, for me, personally speaking, I think a really fun character to play this time around is Cait Sith. His very distinct controls in battle are just very fun and really entertaining. It’s kind of a different feeling from playing a character with a more orthodox battle style, like Cloud, for example. With Cait Sith, you’re able to summon the fat moogle in battle, which actually has its own HP, and while it’s summoned, you can ride it, and then you’re able to do these various attacks, but you can also jump off of it, and at that point the fat moogle automatically attacks the enemy on its own. As individual Cait Sith running around, you also have your own attacks that are unique from when you’re riding the moogle, so that’s very interesting, and is something that I’d love to have players try for themselves, because it’s a lot of fun.

I know a lot of people are excited for all the mini-games – and I love them too, I just played Queen’s Blood [in the demo], which was great, and I’m very excited to play more of it. I’m curious if the Gold Saucer, which was a big mini-game location in the original, is going to be, basically, a one-to-one remake with just bigger versions of the original mini-games, or are they going to be entirely revamped for Rebirth?

Naoki Hamaguchi: In approaching the mini-games in Gold Saucer, to the best of our ability, we have kind of tried to reconstruct the original mini-games that are present there, but, of course, keeping in mind the quality of today’s graphics in order to elevate that playability. Regarding the controls and gameplay, we have arranged this as more of a contemporary experience compared to the original [Final Fantasy 7]. Personally, among the mini-games within Gold Saucer, I do think that the Chocobo Race is sort of a standout in that the playability, as a mini-game on its own, it’s very well-developed, as much as a full-fledged racing game I would say, so I hope players are excited for that. For other familiar mini-games from Gold Saucer, like the 3D Battler or the Shooting Coaster, these are also reconstructed for Rebirth in a way that’s both nostalgic yet feels very new and fresh, so I hope people can look forward to it.

And not just Gold Saucer, but for Rebirth, the mini-games are really spread across the world map, and some are very unique to their location, and others also may have, for example, a unique way to solve this game, or have unique gameplay attached to it. In that way, not just in Gold Saucer, I believe players will be able to have a very fulfilling experience of playing various mini-games throughout the world map as well.