It’s been 4 whole years since a remake of Final Fantasy VII, easily the most iconic game in the Final Fantasy series, was announced at Sony’s 2015 E3 press conference. Square Enix has a notorious reputation for announcing titles way too early into development, yet once we received new footage for the game later that same year at Sony’s PlayStation Experience event, it genuinely seemed like it maybe, just maybe, wouldn’t be too long until we had the remake in our hands. Except that was the last time we saw the game publicly for years. With development shifted from CyberConnect2 to an in-house team in that time it appeared development was in trouble, and many wondered whether we’d ever see the game finish development at this rate. Then, almost out of nowhere, we had a new trailer shown during Sony’s State of Play with more details promised in June, and now, straight from the Final Fantasy VII concert that was held in the US tonight, we finally have a release date.
I’ve been personally excited for this game for a while as someone who, I’m afraid to admit, has owned the original game for many years yet has never played it. The gameplay builds upon the footage shown to the public last month, showing off more of the games action set-pieces while introducing the iconic cast of characters in action. Footage of the game still appears to be entirely focused on the early moments of the sprawling action RPG, in line with previous confirmation that the game would be split into multiple full-length releases instead of one single package like the original PS1 game.
We all knew a trailer was coming this month, thanks to that being confirmed by Square Enix during last month’s new teaser. What is surprising, however, is the fact that the footage was shown off by Square Enix today instead of holding off for their own press conference (although I would expect more information to be revealed there), as well as the fact that we now have a release date for the game. Yes, the Final Fantasy VII remake that had, for the longest time, been missing in action, was now confirmed to be hitting store shelves in Winter 2020, with a specific release date being cited as March 3rd.
If I had one complaint about Square Enix’s handling of information regarding Final Fantasy VII’s remake up to this point, it’s the fact that all the footage we have been shown seems to cover the exact same ground, the very opening few hours of the original game. It leads to some of the trailers feeling repetitive and I can’t help but think that I’d seen much of this new trailer already. However, that hasn’t hindered my excitement, and with a release date just 9 months away on March 3rd 2020 exclusively on PS4, you can bet I’m excited to get my hands on this game, and I hope to see more at Square Enix’s E3 press conference tomorrow.