Final Fantasy VII Revelation is bringing the iconic trilogy developed by Square Enix to a close on PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, and Nintendo Switch 2 in Spring 2027, featuring a massive open world to explore with the Highwind airship that promises to redefine the series' scale.
If the final entry in the series were to strictly follow the story beats of the original, players wouldn't have much reason to bring Cloud and his companions back to multiple locations that already appeared in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. However, director Naoki Hamaguchi clarified in an interview with TheGamer that there will be plenty of reasons to explore the whole world again.
"Our approach will shift slightly for the third instalment," Hamaguchi-san explained. "Because players will be able to travel via the Highwind from an early stage, we believe a game design where players can choose their own order of approaching the world map — even more so than in Rebirth — would be a better fit. In that sense, rather than repeating the same experience across the trilogy, each title will change the very way of engaging with the world."
The Final Fantasy VII Revelation director confirmed that the team brought back locations from Rebirth only because they believed they could offer compelling reasons to visit them back. These reasons include strong narrative incentives and offering a "greater sense of scale". "It wasn’t an easy task for the team, but I feel that, as a result, we’ve created a world map that feels truly substantial," Hamaguchi-san said.
Among the regions of the Final Fantasy VII world many expected to see in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth were Cid's hometown, Rocket Town, and Yuffie's homeland of Wutai. Both will feature prominently in Final Fantasy VII Revelation, and the reason they weren't included in the second entry in the trilogy had nothing to do with splitting content.
"Rocket Town and Wutai are certainly memorable in the original game, but when we looked at the plot and overall gameplay experience of Rebirth, we felt that they contained a very high density of information, and that including them at this stage would actually hinder the flow and pacing of the main story. Therefore, we made the decision to exclude them from Rebirth from the outset," Hamaguchi-san explained. "As a result, this created room for Rocket Town and Wutai to be treated as locations of significant importance in the third instalment, both in terms of story and gameplay experience. Looking back now, I believe it was the right decision in that it maintained the experiential depth of each individual title."
Considering how Final Fantasy's story has been constructed, the decision to leave these iconic locations for Final Fantasy VII Revelation makes a lot of sense. The events of Rocket Town are directly related to Cid Highwind, who is not a playable character in Rebirth, while Wutai's role has been significantly expanded over the original. Including both carried a heavy risk of diluting the narrative experience with limited payoff unrelated to the events of the Temple of the Ancients and the dramatic ending.
As such, it will be very interesting to see how the two locations will be integrated into Final Fantasy VII Revelation, and how their events will be used to further develop Cid and Yuffie, and their relevance to the grander story. Unfortunately, we are still a bit away from the game's release, but a better look at these two locations, and the substantial open-world Square Enix built for the game, shouldn't be too far off in the future.
About the author: Francesco De Meo has been covering video games and technology since 2012, starting his career at small outlets like Gamersyndrome and GeekSnack. After joining Wccftech gaming section in 2015, he quickly expanded his video gaming coverage with in-depth reporting, interviews with iconic industry figures such as Grasshopper Manufacture founder and No More Heroes creator Goichi "Suda51" Suda, Resident Evil series creator Shinji Mikami, Team NINJA's president and Nioh series director Fumihiko Yasuda, and Silent Hill creator Keiichiro Toyama, reviews and on-the-ground coverage of major industry events such as Gamescom and E3. When he's not reporting or reviewing, Francesco can be found playing the genres he loves most, spending time with his six cats, reading, writing music, playing guitar and drumming for his progressive rock band.
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