Final Fantasy VII Rebirth


is a 2024 action role-playing game developed and published by Square Enix. The game is a sequel to Final Fantasy VII Remake and the second in a planned trilogy of games remaking the 1997 PlayStation game Final Fantasy VII.
Like its predecessor, the gameplay of Rebirth combines real-time action with strategic and role-playing elements. Set immediately after Remake's events, players control mercenary Cloud Strife and a party of characters principally comprising the eco-terrorist group AVALANCHE, who embark on a journey across the Planet to prevent the megacorporation Shinra from exploiting its life essence, Mako, as an energy source, and defeat former elite SOLDIER Sephiroth, who seeks to unite with the Planet to achieve greater power.
Rebirth entered production in November 2019 prior to Remake's release, and was announced in June 2022. All of the previous game's lead staff return in the same positions, but with Tetsuya Nomura as creative director instead of director, and Naoki Hamaguchi as director instead of co-director.
Rebirth was released for the PlayStation 5 on February 29, 2024, and for Windows on January 23, 2025. Versions for Nintendo Switch 2 and Xbox Series X/S are planned. Upon release, the game was critically acclaimed; it was nominated for and won multiple end-of-year awards, including Game of the Year.

Gameplay

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is the second in a planned trilogy of games remaking the 1997 PlayStation game Final Fantasy VII. It begins after the events of Final Fantasy VII Remake, following the party's escape from the metropolis of Midgar.
Players primarily control Cloud Strife, a former Shinra soldier who joins the eco-terrorist group AVALANCHE to fight Shinra, who has been draining the Planet's life energy, and is drawn into a conflict with the legendary SOLDIER Sephiroth, who has returned after being presumed dead. Like Remake, Rebirth reimagines elements of the original game while expanding upon character development and the overall narrative structure.
The game features real-time exploration and combat, with a more open-ended overworld compared to the linear progression of Remake's Midgar. Objective markers appear in the heads-up display, highlighting main story quests and sidequests to complete along with their respective distances from the party in the overworld. In addition to walking on foot, the party can ride on Chocobos as a faster means of traversal. Rebirth expands on the hybrid of action-focused melee combat and the Active Time Battle system introduced in Remake, in which the player takes control of a party of characters that can be freely switched between during gameplay. During combat, characters use both physical attacks and magic, and can consume items for offensive, defensive and resuscitative purposes from a menu while gameplay is suspended around them. The "Synergized" mechanic, first introduced in the downloadable content "Episode INTERmission" campaign for Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade, returns, allowing party members to synchronize their attacks.

Plot

Setting and characters

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth continues the overarching narrative first introduced in Final Fantasy VII Remake, which reimagines the plot, world, and cast of the original Final Fantasy VII. The game takes place on "The Planet" and centers on the journey of the main characters as they seek to end the tyranny of the Shinra Electric Power Company, which controls the megalopolis of Midgar by weaponizing the Lifestream, and defeat Sephiroth, a legendary veteran of Shinra's elite SOLDIER unit who was presumed dead and seeks to summon Meteor to wound the Planet, enabling him to attain godhood by uniting with the Lifestream. Rebirth spans the events from leaving Midgar to the Forgotten Capital; however, the order in which locations are explored is changed from the original game. For example, the visit to Wutai will be saved for the third installment.
The protagonist and leader of the party is Cloud Strife, a former member of SOLDIER's 1st Class who now works as a mercenary assisting the eco-terrorist group Avalanche, which opposes Shinra's exploitation of the Planet and its resources. Accompanying him are two of its members: Barret Wallace, its brazen but empathetic leader, and Tifa Lockhart, Cloud's compassionate but shy childhood friend who works as a bartender at the 7th Heaven in Midgar and is a practicing martial artist. They are joined by Aerith Gainsborough, a flower merchant who previously lived in Midgar's Sector 5 Slums and is the sole survivor of the ancient Cetra; Red XIII, an intelligent quadruped from Cosmo Canyon who Shinra held captive as a lab rat; and Yuffie Kisaragi, an expert Materia thief and ninja from Wutai who resolves to join the team to realize Shinra's downfall after losing her partner Sonon Kusakabe in a failed attempt to extract the "Ultimate Materia" from their headquarters.
Supporting characters play roles throughout the story, including Zack Fair, Aerith's former boyfriend and the previous wielder of the Buster Sword, who escaped with Cloud after Shinra experimented on them using the cells of the extraterrestrial life-form Jenova; Cait Sith, a robotic cat remotely controlled by Shinra's Head of Urban Development Reeve Tuesti ; Vincent Valentine, a former member of the Turks who Professor Hojo experimented on; and Cid Highwind, a grizzled pilot from Rocket Town and an ex-Shinra rocket scientist who is dedicated to achieving spaceflight.
Other characters include Bugenhagen, the elder of Cosmo Canyon; Avalanche member Biggs, who, unlike in the original game, survives the Sector 7 Plate's collapse in Midgar and now seeks revenge against Shinra for the deaths of his friends; Dyne, a childhood friend of Barret from Mt. Corel and the biological father of his adopted daughter Marlene; and Elena, a new recruit of the Turks who seeks to apprehend Cloud and his allies.

Synopsis

Following the events of the previous game, Zack Fair reaches Midgar with a comatose Cloud, and it is revealed that he resides in a timeline where the end of the world is imminent as a result of the total depletion of the Planet's mako. Shinra has captured Barret and Tifa, while Red XIII sacrificed himself to free a comatose Aerith. Zack takes Cloud and Aerith to the house of Aerith's mother, Elmyra, to hide out, as well as track down Biggs, the last survivor of AVALANCHE, who is revealed to be from the original timeline, having been transported to Zack's timeline due to the Whispers' intervention. After Shinra troops kill Biggs, and Marlene gives an ominous prophecy that Sephiroth will kill Aerith, Zack is left conflicted on whether to focus on saving Cloud or Aerith.
Back in the original timeline, Cloud and his friends rest in Kalm, and he tells them about his past with Sephiroth. Five years earlier, Cloud and Sephiroth were posted to Cloud and Tifa's hometown of Nibelheim to investigate its mako reactor. There, Sephiroth went insane after discovering that he was actually an artificial being created from Jenova's cells and set fire to Nibelheim, killing many of its inhabitants, including Cloud's mother and Tifa's father. Cloud pursued Sephiroth to the reactor where Jenova's body was stored, but he had no memory of what happened afterward. Later, Tifa confides in Aerith that while the events five years ago did occur, she has no recollection of Cloud being present for them.
The next day, Shinra forces raid Kalm in search of the party, forcing them to flee. They decide to follow the trail of the mysterious "black robes," former Shinra test subjects who Cloud believes are congregating towards Sephiroth's location. The party follows their trail through various locations, including the Shinra-occupied port city of Junon, the resort city of Costa del Sol, Barret's hometown of Corel, the Gold Saucer amusement park, Zack's hometown of Gongaga, Red XIII's hometown of Cosmo Canyon, where they learn Red XIII's real name is Nanaki, and a rebuilt Nibelheim. They also meet and recruit new members into their party: Wutai ninja Yuffie Kisaragi, remote-controlled fortune-telling robot cat Cait Sith, freelance pilot Cid Highwind, and ex-Turk supersoldier Vincent Valentine.
During their journey, the party discovers that the Planet has manifested its guardians, the Weapons, to protect itself, and that with the absence of the Arbiter of Fate, a schism has formed between the Whispers, with one side aiding Sephiroth and the other trying to protect the Planet. Rufus is inaugurated as Shinra's new president and continues the company's search for the Promised Land in a bid to surpass his father, as diplomatic relations between Shinra and Wutai worsen, threatening war. Eventually, the party discovers that Sephiroth's ultimate plan is to use the Black Materia to summon Meteor to destroy the Planet. The party races Shinra to a mystical fortress and obtains the Black Materia, only for Sephiroth to mind-control Cloud into handing it over. He tells Cloud and Aerith that countless alternate worlds were created following the destruction of the Arbiter of Fate, allowing him to carry out "Reunion" by forcibly fusing them into one world to create the paradise he seeks to rule over. While almost forced to kill Aerith, Cloud manages to fight off Sephiroth's control, instead plunging him and Aerith into a forest far below.
Waking up later with Aerith missing, Cloud finds himself back in a version of Midgar with an oddly cheerful Aerith. As it turns out, the Whispers have depleted her ancestral White Materia, which can counter the Black Materia, an alternate Aerith summons Cloud to her world, where she confesses her feelings for him and gives him her White Materia as a replacement. Reuniting with the rest of the party, they follow Aerith's traces to an ancient Cetran City, where a horde of whispers prevents them from going into the temple that Aerith has entered; however, the group is capable of opening a tear in space similar to how Sephiroth did on the highway leading away from Midgar. Unable to go through the tear as a group and realizing that going through the tear could very well change fate as it did the first time, the rest of the group urges Cloud to go through while they hold it open and promise to catch up with him. After going through the tear and searching, Cloud finds Aerith attempting to perform a Cetra ritual to thwart Sephiroth's plans, and is almost forced by the Whispers to attack her, but resists their attempt, just in time for Sephiroth to descend from the skies in an attempt to kill Aerith himself. Although it appears that Cloud blocks his sword, it is revealed to have been a figment of Cloud's distorted mind; Sephiroth succeeds in killing Aerith as the rest of the group manages to catch up, and the White Materia falls into the water. As the party battles Jenova, Cloud is separated from the others, his reality converging with that of an alternate Zack.
Sephiroth banishes Zack back to his timeline, only for the Aerith from his reality to arrive to aid Cloud. Sephiroth is defeated and retreats as Zack is confident that he and Cloud will cross paths again. Meanwhile, Rufus realizes that Sephiroth caused the recent tensions between Shinra and Wutai to distract him as more black robes congregate in Nibelheim. The party is left despondent by Aerith's death, except for Cloud, still seemingly able to interact with Aerith but unaware that he is the only one who can perceive her. As the party prepares to pursue Sephiroth further north, Cloud discovers he somehow still has the Black Materia, which he fuses into the Buster Sword, and parts ways with Aerith, who says she will stay behind to find a way to stop the Meteor.