Square Enix infamously trolled just about everyone at last year’s PlayStation Experience expo, by announcing an HD port of the Steam re-release of highly celebrated RPG, Final Fantasy VII for PlayStation 4. Who’d have thunk it, but it turns out that that’s not what fans had in mind when they said they wanted an HD remake of Final Fantasy VII, first tantalizingly teased by a tech demo for the then-new PlayStation 3 hardware almost a decade ago.
Well, you can finally calm your fury, as Square Enix delivered another white whale of gaming, in a PlayStation conference full of white whales of gaming at this year’s E3. A full-blown HD remake of Final Fantasy VII is actually happening, with a gorgeous pre-rendered teaser showing how the game will look with its new visuals, which appear to be being re-done from the ground up to take advantage of the massive power of the PlayStation 4.
Final Fantasy VII first released on the original PlayStation back in 1997, where it was credited as one of the top-selling games in the console’s entire history, and has since been considered not just one of the best PlayStation games of all time, but one of the best games of all time overall. Final Fantasy VII has also persistently remained a top seller in PS One Classics downloads from the PlayStation Store on any given month. The classic turn-based RPG involves brooding hero, Cloud Strife, as he and his companions try and save the planet from the deranged plan of a powerful lunatic called Sephiroth, and that’s in absolute simplest terms, given the epic, complex story.
As beloved as Final Fantasy VII is, it’s often criticized for its primitive polygon graphics aging rather poorly. This new HD remake should give the classic tale a whole new lease on life when it comes to PlayStation 4, alongside that HD port of the untouched original that nobody asked for, apparently. What’s more interesting however is that Square Enix claims that the HD remake of Final Fantasy VII, as in the real one, not the glossed-up port of the 1997 build, is only a timed exclusive on PlayStation 4, and will eventually come to other platforms. Unless this simply means PC, this is odd, since Sony participated in the development efforts of Final Fantasy VII, especially in helping it get to the West, and it was thus believed that Sony retained some of the game’s rights as a result, preventing it from releasing on competing Xbox or Nintendo platforms. Then again, this deal may have either lapsed somehow, potentially because the remake creates a legal loophole, or Square Enix may simply be addressing a PC version to come for the remake, which would be fair game regardless.
The Final Fantasy VII remake currently has no release window set, but is apparently planned to commemorate the game’s upcoming 20th anniversary, likely placing it for release in 2017. In any case though, keep summoning Eggplante for all news and updates on the Final Fantasy VII remake, and other big developments for the Final Fantasy series.