Square Enix has confirmed that the ongoing Final Fantasy VII Remake saga will consist of three games, but the developer briefly considered telling the story in two. After decades of rumor, speculation, and hopes from fans, the first installment of the long-awaited remake of Final Fantasy VII was finally released onto the PlayStation 4 in 2020 under the title of Final Fantasy VII Remake. This first chapter of a larger series retold the opening chapters of the original Final Fantasy VII and reintroduced players to Cloud Strife and Team AVALANCHE as they battled to expose the corruption of the ShinRa Electric Power Company in the city of Midgar. The ending of Final Fantasy VII Remake saw these heroes depart Midgar after a battle against the rogue SOLIDER Sephiroth, leaving fans waiting for the news of the next installment.
This news finally came during last month’s Final Fantasy 7 Anniversary Celebration livestream, which saw the announcement of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth among a plethora of other Final Fantasy VII-related titles. Picking up where Final Fantasy VII Remake and the later Intermission DLC left off, Rebirth will likely feature a few interesting twists as it retells the infamous Nibelheim Incident that marked the genesis of Cloud Strife’s epic rivalry with Sephiroth and the latter’s bid to destroy the planet as revenge against ShinRa. Square Enix has already revealed that this rivalry won’t reach its conclusion with Rebirth, as a third, currently-untitled Final Fantasy VII Remake game is already in development ahead of Rebirth’s planned launch on the PlayStation 5 in 2023.
In a recent interview with Famitsu (as translated by VGC), Final Fantasy VII Rebirth creative director Tetsuya Nomura and producer Yoshinori Kitase explained that the development team wasn’t initially sure how many games would be required to tell the full Final Fantasy VII Remake story – and this was the reason Square Enix took so long to announce how many parts it would have. Nomura stated that for a while, his team was considering whether Final Fantasy VII Remake “would be a trilogy or a two-part series,” with Kitase initially leaning toward the latter. Kitase added that at the beginning of Final Fantasy VII Remake’s development, it wasn’t clear how many man-hours would be required to tell the full story in two parts. The team at Square Enix eventually decided on making Final Fantasy VII Remake a trilogy after figuring out how much work it would take, and Nomura remains certain that there will only be three installments.
The ending to Final Fantasy VII Remake featured a massive twist to the events of the original Final Fantasy VII, and this has left fans wondering about the ramifications of this going into Final Fantasy VII Rebirth – as well as drawing theories about how and when Rebirth will divert from its source material on social media. However Rebirth alters the Final Fantasy VII timeline, Tetsuya Nomura has assured players that they will be able to jump straight into Final Fantasy VII Rebirth without any prior knowledge about Final Fantasy VII or even the first chapter of Final Fantasy VII Remake.
It’s safe to guess that Final Fantasy VII Rebirth will feature several shocking twists and turns when it finally releases next year – and it could have included the end of Cloud and his friends’ tale had Square Enix gone through with its brief plan to tell the story in two parts. As it stands now, Final Fantasy VII Remake will be a trilogy, and it will likely be a few years still before fans see the grand conclusion of a storyline decades in the making.
