// KOTAKU — GAMING
12 Things We Learned About Final Fantasy VII Revelation From The State Of Play
Final Fantasy VII Revelation closed out this morning’s State of Play showcase, and while the April 8 release date is the biggest news, we also got an extended look at how the final game in Square Enix’s Remake trilogy will let you explore its open world, give you more control over how you play and who you play as, and shift the story around depending on who you choose to bring with you on quests. You can watch the nearly 10-minute deep dive below, but if you can’t stop to watch a video, we’re here to break down everything we learned.
Revelation looks set to offer by far the most freedom in how we travel through the world of Final Fantasy VII in the Remake trilogy, and it’s all thanks to the Highwind airship. The deep dive begins with footage of a player flying around the open world and dropping down on an area below, Fortnite style. It looks like an open-world RPG in the truest sense of the term. Whether that looks wonderful or tiresome is in the eye of the beholder.
Once you’re on the ground Pico, your Chocobo companion, will act as both a steed to ride on and as a playable party member, essentially. You can ride the bird and fight on top of it, or dismount and fight as normal on foot.
New in Revelation is the FITS system, which are four outfits that alter each character’s abilities set. The options are Warrior, Knight, Black Mage, and Summoner, which each give characters new outfits and techniques alongside their typical arsenals of abilities. We only saw two in action in the trailer, but we know that Summoners can work with summonable entities and Knights are a more defense-focused class.
The airship gets you around the open world, but it’s also where you’ll return to throughout Revelation to check in with your crew, and it’ll change as the story unfolds. This could perhaps mean people come aboard and depart the ship as the game goes on, or perhaps that new functions will become available throughout the story, but the video didn’t get too into specifics.
Revelation is really leaning into the “Everyone Is Here” vibe, allowing you to finally play as the full party (sans Aerith, but, ya know), and it looks like, with the exception of big story moments, you can play whoever you want and customize your party accordingly. The player is seen swapping between characters on the fly, so if you have a favorite, you can play much of the game as them.
At one point we see Yuffie running around Wutai’s capital and using the game’s camera feature to take cute pics of some of the cats in the city. I’m just waiting to see if we’ll be able to take selfies with bosses, Kingdom Hearts III style.
I’m glad to see Square Enix is putting some effort into the traversal mechanics in Revelation, especially if it’s going to be as expansive an open world as it looks like. Yuffie is shown using a grappling hook to get around the capital, and is able to cross a lot of space fairly quickly with it.
Revelation will let you fast-travel to anywhere you’ve already been, but one new place fans will get to see in the game is Cid’s hometown of Rocket Town. Though we don’t see it in the trailer itself, Square Enix mentions that it will be one of the new areas you’ll finally be able to see.
Square Enix mentions that characters from across the Final Fantasy VII compilation will appear in Revelation, and it’s unclear if that means it will include characters from across multiple games and external media or if this is just a fancy way of saying that characters from earlier games in the Remake trilogy will show up. The example they show is Cissnei who appeared in Rebirth, so it’s hard to say if we can also expect some deeper cuts that only those who have played or watched more of the Final Fantasy VII subseries might recognize.