’90s kids will remember this. Final Fantasy VII, the game that busted JPRGs out of their niche and helped make the original PlayStation the must-have console of the generation, is, as we all know, being remade. But until today it wasn’t really clear just what “remade” actually meant. The teaser trailer put online today is packed full of details, though of course they may change over the course of development. It’s exciting not just for fans of this game, but for those of us who prefer VI and are deeply interested in how that (superior) game might get remade. Or VIII or IX, honestly. The trailer shows the usual suspects traversing the first main area of the game, Midgar. A mix of cutscenes and gameplay presents a game that looks to be more like Final Fantasy XV than anything else. This may be a bitter pill for some — while I doubt anyone really expected a perfect recreation of the original’s turn-based combat, XV has been roundly criticized for oversimplification of the franchise’s occasionally quite complex systems. With a single button for “attack,” another for a special and the rest of the commands relegated to a hidden menu, it looks a lot more like an action RPG than the original. A playable Barret suggests the ability to switch between characters either at will or when the story demands. But there’s nothing to imply the hidden depths of, say, XII’s programmatic combat or even XIII’s convoluted breakage system. But dang, does it look good. Aerith (not “Aeris” as some would have it) looks sweet, Cloud is stone-faced and genie-panted and Barret is buff and gruff, all as detailed and realistic as we have any right to expect. The city looks wonderfully rendered and clearly they’re not phoning in the effects. It’s more than a little possible that the process for remaking VII is something that the company is considering for application to other titles (I can see going all the way back to IV), but with this game being the most obvious cash cow and test platform for it. “More to come in June,” the video concludes. Will we enter a gaming era rife with remakes preying on our nostalgia, sucking our wallets dry so we can experience a game for the 4th or 5th time, but with particle effects and streamlined menus? I hope so. Watch the full teaser below:<doc-sep>Recap: Final Fantasy VII launched in early 1997 on Sony’s original PlayStation console. It was a seminal release and the first in the series to utilize full motion video and 3D graphics (albeit with 2D backgrounds). The game garnered multiple Game of the Year awards and was even inducted into the World Video Game Hall of Fame in 2018. Sony in December of 2015 announced plans for an official remake of Final Fantasy VII. The Japanese gaming giant even published a teaser trailer although in the three and a half years that have since elapsed, we’ve heard nary a word about the title outside of job listings from developer Square Enix. That changed this week with the launch of a new teaser trailer featuring development footage. Sony promises to share more information in June although considering the company isn’t attending E3, we won’t be looking for it at the show. Final Fantasy VII fans too anxious to wait until next month are invited to check out the Remako HD Graphics Mod released earlier this year. The mod’s creator, CaptRobau, utilized AI neural networks to boost the resolution of the background images in the game by a factor of four. As you can see from the comparison trailer, the results are quite stunning.<doc-sep>After a long period of development hell, the Final Fantasy VII remake is finally back in the real world, with Square Enix dropping a short teaser trailer today and promising more to come in June. It looks great. First announced at E3 2015, the Final Fantasy VII remake went through some mysterious problems, with Square Enix taking it away from third-party studio CyberConnect2 in 2017 and moving development in-house. Now, it’s finally back on our radar, action-RPG combat and all. Advertisement Previously, Square had said that the Final Fantasy VII remake would be episodic, and based on this trailer—which is entirely made up of scenes from the game’s first act, in Midgar—that may still be the case. It essentially looks like a new game, more of a re- imagining than a remake, com plete with brand new character abilities and some unfamiliar abilities. Hopefully it’ll be out by 2025.<doc-sep>Sony capped off its latest State of Play presentation with a new trailer for Square Enix's highly anticipated Final Fantasy VII remake. This marks the first new footage we've seen of the game in quite some time, and while brief, it offers a tantalizing look at how the remake is shaping up. The trailer, which you can watch above, shows off what appears to be footage from the early portion of the game. We see Cloud and other members of AVALANCHE infiltrating a plant as part of the famous bombing mission sequence. The video also gives us a quick glimpse at the game's revamped battle system. Despite its fairly brief duration, the trailer ends with a promise that more details will come in June, presumably as part of Square Enix's E3 press conference, which takes place on Monday, June 10, at 6 PM PT / 9 PM ET. Following the presentation, the official Final Fantasy Twitter account shared a message from Final Fantasy VII remake director Tetsuya Nomura, reaffirming that fans won't have to wait much longer for more info about the game. "Most of the plans are already in place in the run up to launch, so please bear with us a little longer until we can release more information next month," the message read. The Final Fantasy VII remake was first announced during Sony's E3 2015 presentation, although since then, details about the game have been scarce. Nomura was directing the game concurrently with another long-awaited title, Kingdom Hearts III, although the developer claimed that directing them both made his life easier. Kingdom Hearts III finally launched earlier this year, although the Final Fantasy VII remake is still without a release date. Sony's latest State of Play presentation was only roughly 10 minutes long, although it game us a look at quite a few games during that time. Along with new footage of the MediEvil remake, the presentation revealed new details about Monster Hunter World's Iceborne expansion and showed off a new Predator game from Friday the 13th developer IllFonic.<doc-sep>
After being announced back in 2015, the remake of Final Fantasy VII seems to be finally getting closer. Sony showed off some rare gameplay footage in a State of Play video earlier today, and it’s promised to say more about the game in June — presumably around the E3 gaming conference. The one-minute trailer shows off a lot of cinematic shots, but we get a little gameplay as well. It looks relatively similar to the gameplay we saw nearly four years ago — although the interface is more detailed and Cloud’s hair looks better (to me, at least). We also get a very quick look at the remake’s version of Sephiroth. The game still doesn’t have a release date, but in the words of the trailer, “the return draws closer.” (Here’s the English-language version of the new trailer.) Final Fantasy VII director Tetsuya Nomura has said that the remake was announced far earlier than he’d have liked, in order to get ahead of rumors about the game. But last year, he was promising that the remake was “actually in development.” In a blog post accompanying the trailer, producer Yoshinori Kitase apologized for the wait. “Finally... The long awaited moment has come. Sorry to keep you all waiting so long!” he wrote. And in a tweet from the official Final Fantasy account, Nomura says that “most of the plans are already in place in the run up to launch.” Here's the Teaser Trailer for #FinalFantasy VII Remake that was introduced just now at #StateofPlay. Most of the plans are already in place in the run up to launch, so please bear with us a little longer until we can release more information next month – Tetsuya Nomura #FF7R pic.twitter.com/LLMqWw8e9x — FINAL FANTASY (@FinalFantasy) May 9, 2019 For reference, the 2015 gameplay trailer is below.