The highly anticipated game Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, the second installment in the ambitious Final Fantasy VII Remake trilogy, received widespread critical acclaim when it launched in late February.
The game earned a perfect score in Wccftech's review penned by Kai Tatsumoto:
If there’s one word to describe Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, it would be ambitious. Tetsuya Nomura, Kazushige Nojima, and the rest of Creative Business Unit I at Square-Enix have turned what is merely the remainder of Final Fantasy VII’s Disc One upon leaving Midgar into a 100-hour-long epic. Moments of distracted exploration throughout the massive wide-open environments are often bookended with more linear story segments that balance comedy and somber moments. Players will feel more intimately engrossed with the story of those chosen by the planet and routinely have their fond memories of playing the original tickled with delight. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is an absolute must-play for fans of the series.
The Metascore (the average of reviews aggregated on Metacritic, which includes ours) is 92, three points higher than the predecessor. And yet, according to Daniel Ahmad, Director of Research & Insights at Niko Partners, the game is severely underperforming in sales compared to Final Fantasy VII Remake. Here's what the analyst wrote on Twitter:
Not to be that guy, but Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is underperforming sales wise. It’s selling about half of what Remake sold in the same timeframe and looks like it’ll have a weaker tail (prior to any PS+ like release).
Ahmad cited equities research reports that get the data from 'usual trackers'. Publicly, we know that the game ranked fifth on UK's March 2024 chart (topped by Helldivers 2).
There's a few obvious reasons for this puzzling sales performance. First and foremost, the Final Fantasy VII Remake launched in April 2020, right in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, when the games industry experienced an unprecedented boost to gaming revenue and engagement caused by the mandatory stay-at-home laws.
Moreover, that was also just a few months before the release of the new consoles. PlayStation 4 was at an all-time high install base nearly seven years after its launch, whereas PS5 has barely reached half of that time on the market.
It is unlikely that this underwhelming performance will influence Square Enix's plans to complete the trilogy. The next and final installment is already in production, and the developers hope to be able to release the game in around three or four years. However, the low sales may persuade the publisher to be quicker with porting Final Fantasy VII Rebirth to PC.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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