It’s Revelatory: Final Fantasy VII Remake Series Ends in Revelation

Everyone and their brother (and specifically my daughter, who sat through two hours of Summer Game Fest just for this) was expecting the third game of the Final Fantasy VII Remake series to show today. And if you weren’t confident, seeing Naoki Hamaguchi come on stage for Tifa in Street Fighter 6 probably cemented it for you.

And that’s just what happened; we got a lot of information about the final game today, including the subtitle, trailers for both scenery and gameplay, and a release window. Here’s what I saw, but correct me where I’m wrong.

The initial action drops straight into the Highwind with the party on board, with a parachute mechanic to get where they’re going. Some brief glimpses of Wutai and Midgar appear first, with a bit of combat from new party members Vincent and Cid - nothing unexpected there. Some scenes revealing the Weapons (who seem based on the voiceover work to possibly not be optional bosses any more), the tiniest glimpse of Tifa in a new costume blasting magic, and a scene of the party surrounded by Whispers and Aerith’s flowers… and the name reveal of Final Fantasy VII Revelation. That’s all in the reveal trailer below; check out the thumbnail, which has a very Renaissance-era Biblical quality to it that you might expect from the name:On stage at Summer Game Fest, though, it continued, with Matt Mercer, voice of Vincent, coming on stage with Hamaguchi to talk through a few more details. Hamaguchi explained that the theme of the game to him is “Resolve,” which is interesting because that could have also been a subtitle for the game. Mercer describes the general scenario for the game, covering the Highwind, the arrival of Meteor, and the new locations you’ll see including Mideel and Wutai. They imply pretty heavily that there will be a more open world with less linearity, which makes sense.

From there, they show more combat; the combat system looks every similar to Rebirth, though it appears that characters can have multiple summons available now. Square Enix were willing to show Ifrit being summoned, but eagle-eyed watchers can see Magic Pot and Titan also in the menu.

We got to see more combat detail for the new fighters, including Vincent turning into the Galian Beast mid-battle and even apparently having Synergy abilities to use while in that form; we also got to see Cid’s rapid strikes with his lance and Dragoon-style combat traversal, as well as an area of effect attack.

The biggest combat reveal, though, was Function Integrated Tactical Suitwear, or FITS. This came absolutely out of the blue, but it appears to be a job system for everyone, giving different movesets and costumes for all the playable characters. The characters can stay as “Freelancers,” apparently retaining the combat abilities we’ve gotten used to over the last two games, but can change into specialties as well. The only two seen in the stream are “Warrior” and “Black Mage,” so it’s unclear both what other ones might exist and whether each character only gets a few of them or if they are available globally. In the video, Cloud has access to Warrior and Tifa has Black Mage, with Cait Sith shown in some other sort of mage robes and Barret in heavy technical-looking armor.

The pair on stage cut to one last video: Sapphire Weapon attacking Junon. It looks fantastically powerful, as one would expect. It was the last glimpse before the release window: Spring 2027. So, sadly, we won’t have it for Christmas this year, but we certainly look to be getting it day-and-date for all platforms.So there you have it, the Revelation Reveal. I hope you’re as excited as everyone in my house was!