Square Enix’s Final Fantasy VII Rebirth aims to be a massive return to the open lands of the PS1 original. In the gargantuan follow-up to 2020’s Final Fantasy VII Remake, the development team have recreated the entirety of the PS1 game’s map in a life-size scale.
In an interview with Press Start Australia, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth director Naoki Hamaguchi revealed that the team spent years recreating every part of the original game’s open landscape with cutting-edge visuals. While this won’t be the last installment in the VII Remake saga, the game’s world is almost complete.
Hamaguchi revealed that there will be no loading screens between the different sections of Rebirth’s map. Instead, everything is one big arena, connecting everything in a way that wasn’t possible on last generation hardware.
“What we’ve done is we’ve taken the world map from the original Final Fantasy VII, but we’ve created it all in a one-to-one real scale. So all of the dungeons, all of the cities, everything in that world is now included in the same space. One seamless map,” the director explained.
At the start of the game, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth will roadblock areas of the map for progression purposes, but once everything is unlocked it can be traversed in one fell swoop.
“There is still a fairly large area to explore at the beginning but then as you continue your quest it expands further and further, you get more regions you can go to and then you at any time you want you can go back to the regions you’ve been to before,” Hamaguchi said. “It’s a seamless map, and you can find new quests and new bits of story which have appeared in there as you go along. So that’s generally how not just the world is but how you’ll be exploring it.”
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth will also be expanding in sections found in the original game. For example, the original’s iconic Gold Saucer scene will have even more dating partners, including more of the boys. Additionally, fans will be able to experience a new extra chapter with a playable Zack Fair.
As a PS5 exclusive, at least for six months, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth will release on February 29, 2024.
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