Square Enix finally gave Final Fantasy fans an updated look at the long-awaited Final Fantasy 7 Remake today with a new trailer for the PlayStation 4 game. The new trailer includes brand-new footage of Cloud, Aerith, and Barret in action, both in cutscenes and battle scenarios. It’s a brief teaser but it ends with the promise of more information coming in June. While Sony won’t be attending E3 2019 officially, it sounds like the company will have some announcements to share alongside the show. The Final Fantasy 7 Remake was officially announced way back in 2015 at Sony’s E3 press conference. Since then, it’s undergone some changes — including a switch in developers — and a long period of silence from Square Enix. Game director Tetsuya Nomura said at one point that the remake was announced a bit too early, but it sounds like we’ll hear about some progress soon. On Twitter, Nomura offered some vague language about the game’s release date, saying “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.” Check out some new stills from the trailer in the gallery below.<doc-sep>’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>
After a lengthy disappearance from the public eye, Square Enix showed off a brand-new trailer for the Final Fantasy VII remake during PlayStation’s State of Play stream this afternoon. It shows us a whole lot of new stuff, including much closer looks at much of the game’s core cast, and some quick glimpses of combat and other bits of general gameplay. Folks like Cloud, Aerith, and Barret all play prominent roles in the trailer, and there’s even a fair amount of English voice acting on display – which might give us some hope that the release isn’t too far off. The combat looks to be pretty similar to the action-oriented battles of Final Fantasy XV, though it looks like you’ll have much more prominent control over multiple party members. The trailer ends the only way an FF7 teaser can – with a quick hint of Sepiroth’s appearance. The video promises “more to come in June,” which likely means we’ll get a much better look at the FF7 remake at E3 – which, incidentally, Sony will not be attending. So far, the new FF7 has only been confirmed for PlayStation 4, and it remains to be seen whether it will come to other platforms. Like most third-party publishers, Square Enix has been increasingly focused on multi-platform releases, and with Sony out of E3, that would be the time to announce which – if any – non-PlayStation platforms the game will come to. Check out the trailer for yourself above. Related: Check out all the biggest upcoming PC games In a Twitter message from the official account, Tetsuya Nomura says “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.”