One of the most magical moments in any classic Final Fantasy game is that first time you take off in the airship, and suddenly the world expands. Even though a lot of Final Fantasy games are overall linear, that airship provided a mystique to the essential experience: a sense of freedom that pulled at the strings of your imagination and made the world seem bigger than what the developers could actually accomplish at the time.
But those things are possible now; we have massive, seamless open worlds filled with dozens of hours of side content and quests. And in every regard, it looks like Final Fantasy 7 Revelation is doubling down on the “excess” design of Rebirth, but trying to streamline and tweak it to fit each player better.
It’s a fascinating approach that feels unlike anything the Final Fantasy franchise has seen, and I already adore a lot of the new elements. But at the same time, I find myself worried just a smidge about the overload of Revelation’s open world, and how it’ll all come together if you’re here for the long haul. Strap in, because I’ve got a lot to talk about.
Without going too much into inside-baseball mode, the Revelation demo I played was one of the most fascinating choices for a hands-on I’ve ever seen at these types of events. Typically, these sorts of demos focus on hand-crafted sections of the game, or more curated elements, even if there’s a variety of things to do. Revelation’s demo drops you into literally partway through the game, right when the party unlocks the Highwind for the first time – which seems to be Chapter 4, during which Cloud is in Mideel recovering.
After a short tutorial aboard the airship, I was given complete freedom to explore the open world, with only a few of the game’s many regions locked off. Nine suggested paths were available, including the main story in Wutai, but it was entirely up to me where I wanted to go and what I wanted to do.
And, of course, the open world was absolutely packed to the brim with icons for side activities, quests, minigames, collectibles, and much more. It was extremely overwhelming at first, to say the least, but I decided on four main things to pursue: I visited Highwind, Mideel, Wutai, and the Ruby Weapon battle. There were a host of familiar locations and faces I could have revisited from Rebirth, including a brand-new Queen’s Blood plotline, but for this, I mostly wanted to see what’s new and additive to the world of Revelation.
Perhaps what I was most interested in personally was the Highwind, which essentially serves as your base of operations in Revelation; think of it a bit like the Normandy in Mass Effect. This is, by far, one of the moments of the demo that interested me the most. The Highwind is filled with named, distinct crew members that work for Cid, as well as several facilities for playing Queen’s Blood, virtual battles, and viewing mementos from across your journey, buying equipment, Chadley’s research lab, and more.
It makes the Highwind feel like a living, breathing place rather than just a vessel. There’s even an entire bedroom and lodging area that feels very home-y, where I notice the particularly interesting detail of a bulletin board pinned with two photos from Rebirth. With expanded camera options in Revelation that let you take shots or selfies, it seems perfect for a Final Fantasy 15-style photo system.
Talking to Final Fantasy 7 Revelation director Naoki Hamaguchi after my demo, I’m told that the Highwind, and the character moments and conversations aboard it, will change across the experience. However, players aren’t required to return to the ship’s interior.
Of course, the mechanical implementation of the Highwind now means that you can fly anywhere you want in the world at any time, parachute out, and land anywhere on the map. And yes, it’s quite impressive to see. The actual act of parachuting and landing does feel a bit finicky and imprecise, something that will likely be touched up — but it’s genuinely impressive to be able to jump out anywhere.
My first stop was the village of Mideel, which feels like a mix of a quaint jungle hideaway and a forward operating medical base for Shinra, adorned with countless crates and supplies. Mideel’s visual design is interesting: an incredibly dense jungle that feels almost oppressive, with winding pathways through forests of trees. It feels like a far cry from Gongaga, the jungle area from Rebirth.
I was able to pop in and see the disturbingly comatose Cloud recovering before undertaking a quest to help a family find their lost White Chocobo. As it turns out, it simply hadn’t come back because it fell in love with a Red Chocobo. It’s a quirky little quest with the kind of bizarre, over-the-top humour found in a lot of Rebirth’s side content, but it also let me see a few new things in action.
For one, during this quest I had to use my Chocobo Piko’s scent tracking feature, which feels far more refined now. But I also ran into a wild Chocobo and saw what’s called the “Chocobo Roullete.” When you run into a wild Chocobo while riding Piko, a little wheel pops up and spins three times. If you accumulate enough points via the wheel, the Chocobo will join your entourage aboard the Highwind, tying into a whole Chocobo system there, and perhaps even unveil secrets or points of interest on your map.
But exploring Mideel is also where my first major concern with Revelation popped up: the insistence the game has on showing you how much there is to do. Landing in any region at this point opened up a string of notifications from Mai, detailing the swath of optional objectives. At the same time, Mai often chattered in my ear about nearby things, whether that’s a particularly dangerous enemy, photo opp, or regional landmark.
While I appreciate a good bit of world illustration, my two-hour demo felt inundated with pop-ups and notifications. In turn, this led to decision paralysis, and I didn’t know what to do. Mai serves the role of Chadley from Rebirth, but even in this small snippet, it felt like I was hearing from her twice as much.
I’m fully aware that the number of things popping up was likely because the open world literally unlocked at this point in the game, and I doubt that cadence will continue. But it does give me pause to think about the sheer amount of content on offer here, and whether it will all feel meaningful and well-designed. Earlier this year I was significantly turned off by Crimson Desert’s open-world, and how much of it felt like it added little to nothing to the experience — and that same thought nags at the back of my head now.
I didn’t quite feel this way about my time in Wutai, however, which was mostly story-based and some light exploration. I mean it when I say the addition of Wutai here is absolutely stunning: a landscape unlike anything else in the world of Final Fantasy 7, and a vibrant culture that feels like a functioning nation.
Wutai feels essential now, and the city itself is this grand metropolis filled with verticality that you can traverse with the grapple gun, in many ways reminding me of Shirogane from Final Fantasy 14. It’s by far the biggest city we’ve seen in this trilogy outside of Midgar, and a prime example of the improved traversal. That grapple gun really does let you climb and clamber over nearly every surface, wildly expanding your exploration options, and I imagine it’s the same case for returning areas. It feels like Revelation leans more into that “freeform” world exploration, rather than guided paths within an open world.
This is also where I got to experience a bit of story, from Yuffie having flashbacks to being a young ninja (yes, in her Crisis Core outfit), to Glenn Lodbrok having a duel of words with Goto Kisaragi on the state of the planet. For all intents, Wutai has been meaningfully woven into the main story and world itself, and I’m dying to see more.
The elements I’m much more positive on, however, are the combat additions. Both the FITS system and new characters feel like natural extensions of Rebith’s already superb combat, but they also add distinct elements. In terms of the FITS, Summoner is probably what stands out the most right now, as you can enhance characters’ attacks by momentarily bolstering them with a summon — like Cait Sith throwing out a punch backed up by Ifrit.
This lets you enhance your attacks with elemental properties and, at times, different hit zones and power. Black Mage and Knight similarly outfit a specific character’s kit with new abilities, letting you lean into distinct roles in combat even more.
A Barret with Knight equipped becomes a real damage tank that draws enemy attention. At the same time, Black Mage Tifa can support other magic users in the party while bombarding enemies with physical attacks. FITS feel far less like the defined “jobs” of other Final Fantasy games, and more like pieces of equipment that can enhance certain aspects of characters, while also granting new attacks.
And that brings me to the biggest, and in my opinion, best addition so far: Vincent and Cid. This trilogy has already done a good job of making each character feel unique and distinct, but Cid and Vincent might be some of the most creative yet.
Cid is, by far, the best representation of a Dragoon I’ve seen in an action combat system, flowing through the air with ease to unleash devastating combos and harrowing jumps. He, in particular, has a system that lets you extend combos with the right button timing if you press exactly when his lance flashes, while also being able to mark enemies for additional damage. Despite his old man shtick, Cid is a surprisingly mobile character, somewhere in between Cloud and Caith Sith in terms of speed of play. If you think of Cloud as a sort of melee tank, Cid feels like the DPS character.
Vincent, on the other hand, is fantastically unique: basically an artillery cannon that rains death upon enemies, with the bonus of transforming into the fearsome Gallian Beast to become a melee tank. He’s exceptionally good at staggering enemies and quickly darts around the battlefield in ranged mode, peppering enemies with blows. Then the Gallian Beast is great at interrupting enemies’ attacks while getting in close.
What’s most fascinating about Vincent, however, is that these two combat modes can be strung together in an instant. Regular Vincent and Gallian Beast aren’t so much proper modes you switch between, as they are seamless elements of his combos.
I quickly found out that I could let out a burst of gun blasts, use an ATB skill, change into the Gallian Beast for a melee combo, and then instantly jump out to safety in a string of continuous movements. That fluidity makes Vincent an absolute joy to control and feels like it borrows elements from character action games like Devil May Cry. But Vincent’s skill set also means he pairs well with any party member in the game, complementing both ranged and melee characters.
The final element I want to touch on, though I didn’t see the whole thing, is the fight with Ruby Weapon, a lengthy multi-step process. In the Coral Desert there’s a point of interest you can travel to, and when you arrive, a group of tentacles springs out of the ground and attacks you. When beaten, four more tentacle packs pop up around the desert (and these are absurdly tough fights, already to be clear).
After you vanquish those groups, Ruby Weapon appears and starts wandering the desert. At the same time, several new icons popped up on my map: four missile outcroppings and four ambush sites. Using the crafting system, I could restore these missile silos for support, while the ambush sites were the only place I could properly engage the Weapon. It’s a massive set piece with multiple working parts — although when I tried actually to fight Ruby, it wiped the floor with me, and for time’s sake I moved on. It felt like there was a good bit of the battle left, but it gave me a rough idea of how these “set piece” Weapon battles will play out.
There are a lot of moving pieces in Final Fantasy 7 Revelation, which makes sense as it’s essentially a third game quite literally built on top of two already massive RPGs. I have some real reservations about the scope of Revelation’s world and the many, many activities packed within it. Even as someone who found 90 percent of Rebirth‘s content meaningful and well done, I grew fatigued over time.
But I equally can’t deny that I’m enthralled by many of the additions here. Vincent and Cid are an absolute riot to play, and Wutai was one of those jaw-dropping moments that has my mind racing, thinking about all the ways it’s been properly integrated into this world. Pulling off a third game that’s bigger and better but doesn’t feel like too much seems like it’d be a miracle at this point — but I can’t deny the confidence with which Square Enix is sticking to the vision in Revelation.
Final Fantasy 7 Revelation launches on April 8, 2026, for Xbox Series, PlayStation 5, Switch 2, and PC.
