THE release date for Final Fantasy VII Rebirth has been revealed. Announced on Sept 14 in the latest PlayStation State of Play, the sequel to 2020’s Final Fantasy VII Remake also came with a three-minute-long trailer that showcased a lot of what the game will cover.

Like Remake, Rebirth will also come with two discs, and judging by what was shown in the trailer, it will contain an impressive amount of content, which looks to be far more than Remake had.

The sequel will cover almost everything after Cloud and the main party escape Midgar until the Forgotten Capital, the climactic location that fans of the original game will know as the location where series antagonist Sephiroth kills Aerith.

As already established, Rebirth is set on an alternate timeline compared to Final Fantasy VII from 1997; certain events will not play out as they originally did.

That said, the trailer seems to be pointing towards a different outcome in the Forgotten Capital.

Maybe this time, it’s Cloud that dies, which would be a bold move by Square Enix to kill off one of gaming’s most iconic heroes.

In a roundtable interview with Rebirth producer Yoshinori Kitase, creative director Tetsuya Nomura, director Naoki Hamaguchi, and music supervisor Keiji Kawamori, the article on PlayStation Blog detailed some of the new things the game will introduce.

Unlike the first game, Rebirth will have skill trees that work in tandem with the matrix system.

“Many new ‘Materias’ with new abilities not seen in the first game are available as well, so players will have even more options to customise and build character load-outs to their own taste,” Hamaguchi explained.

The director also pointed out that certain characters will have their own mechanics, such as Red XIII; the wolf-like character, who was present in the first game but could not be directly controlled, will have both an ATB gauge and a “revenge gauge”, so that players can “balance between offensive strategy using the ATB gauge and defensive strategy using the revenge gauge”.

On that note, Nomura also revealed that all the original party members from 1997’s Final Fantasy VII will be in Rebirth, but there will be a caveat.

Characters like Cait Sith and Vincent Valentine will be relegated to Red XIII’s role in Remake; they will be guest party members.

“There are characters who are accompanying members in Rebirth that will become official party members in the next title,” he explained.

Additionally, Rebirth will have a collector’s edition with a hefty price tag of US$350 (RM1,638.17).

This pricey edition will come with the game, a steel bookcase, a 48-cm-tall detailed sculpture of Sephiroth and several in-game downloadable pieces of content.

For added perspective, all these will cost more than a Nintendo Switch or an Xbox Series S.

Pre-orders for the game are currently live, with Final Fantasy VII Rebirth releasing next year on Feb 29 exclusively for the PlayStation 5.