This takeaway comes from a 45-minute hands-on preview attended by Polygon at Gamescom 2026. And to be clear right here, “most spectacular” doesn’t essentially imply “largest.” Although Revelation actually is huge in scale, 45 minutes is in no way lengthy sufficient to evaluate and even absolutely grasp what an open-world sport is making an attempt to supply. However weeks later, I’m nonetheless struck by how Revelation builds on its predecessor, utilizing Rebirth because the literal basis for a jaw-dropping feat of sport design.
FF7 Revelation is redefining ‘open world’
Ultimate Fantasy 7 Revelation, the third and closing (sorry) installment of Sq. Enix’s FF7 remake trilogy, places a cap on this seven-year-long collection. It picks up after the dramatic occasions of Rebirth. Aerith is useless (proper?). Cid and Vincent Valentine have joined the get together. The squad is en path to the ninja nation of Wutai. Oh, and also you get an airship.
The Highwind is the crux of what makes Revelation such a revelation. My demo picked up a couple of hours into the sport, in the beginning of the fourth chapter, “Home of Playing cards.” The core crew is aboard Cid’s airship. A crop of ominous kaiju-like creatures referred to as Weapons have popped up across the planet. Barret spends quite a lot of time shouting about how in the event that they put his daughter, Marlene, in peril, oh boy, they’re gonna remorse it, doesn’t matter that they’re 300 ft tall, by all that’s holy, these bastards are gonna remorse it. And then you definately’re off.
Ultimate Fantasy 7 Revelation’s massive gimmick is which you can fly the airship to actually anyplace on the planet, park it, disembark, dive out of the hangar such as you’re Tom Cruise, deploy a parachute, and gently float right down to earth. And then you definately’re simply there. Utterly seamlessly. I may go to each location I spent hours in again throughout the Rebirth days: Mideel, the Grasslands, Junon, Gongaga, Costa del Sol, the Gold Saucer. It’s all there. (Wutai is a brand new area to Ultimate Fantasy 7 Revelation, however going there in chapter 4 quickly locks you into the principle story mission.) And it’s all rendered precisely the way it appeared within the earlier sport, proper right down to the scooters of Costa del Sol.
You don’t usually get online game sequels that reuse environments in follow-up video games. You hardly ever get video games that reuse each atmosphere. The quick impact this has on worldbuilding, giving the sense that you just’re occupying an actual place versus a collection of meticulously constructed ranges, is actually second to none. Like rotating your first stage in Fez or taking off into orbit for the primary time in No Man’s Sky, it’s a type of you-have-to-play-it-to-believe-it moments of online game wizardry that come alongside each few years. Perhaps the novelty will fade as soon as I’ve completed it 10 or 20 instances. For now, it’s nothing wanting transcendent.
The remainder of Ultimate Fantasy 7 Revelation, no less than in line with what I performed, retains to the impeccable commonplace established within the trilogy’s earlier two entries. It’s intelligent and infrequently foolish with out sacrificing dire narrative stakes. It’s as luxurious as ever; you possibly can really feel the Sq. Enix bucks dripping off each character mannequin and baked into the background of each panorama. And the fight, a mixture of real-time motion and pause-time menus, is as participating as ever.
There are a couple of notable additions to battles, although, that might inject recent verve to what’s now a seven-year-old system. The primary is the Operate-Built-in Tactical Suitwear (FITS) system, which helps you to change between 4 costumes on the fly: Warrior, Knight, Black Mage, and Summoner. Every outfit comes with numerous movesets and stat benefits, that means you possibly can successfully overhaul your get together compositions in the course of a battle. I didn’t experiment a lot with FITS (once more: 45 minutes), although I can already see the way it may open up worlds of risk for high-level play.
Your two new get together members, Cid Highwind and Vincent Valentine, deliver new toolkits into the combination. Cid fights with a workers that offers ineffectual harm, and appears to bleed well being like he’s coated in leeches. (I most likely ought to’ve appeared into FITS, however, hey, do not forget that factor about 45 minutes?) Vincent, however, is an absolute monster — actually. In fight, Vincent can rework into an enormous wolf, the Galian Beast, who shreds by enemies like paper. My characters have been round stage 45, so perhaps this was the results of taking part in high-level characters, however there gave the impression to be few limitations on spamming the Galian Beast’s assaults and obliterating each foe on the battlefield.
No less than by chapter 4, you’ll be capable of discover — and struggle — numerous Weapons throughout Ultimate Fantasy 7 Revelation’s world. Everytime you land in a area for the primary time, MAI (sure, she’s again) will pinpoint the situation of that area’s Weapon, which you’ll be able to then observe down and struggle. She’ll additionally inform you, by a string of pop-up notifications, about all the opposite numerous actions you possibly can interact in: materia hunts, fight challenges, minigames, aspect quests, and so forth. Every area appears to have a devoted aspect quest chain; on the Gold Saucer, for example, the speedo mannequin Dio tasked me with monitoring down a bunch of droids who’re essential to the operation of the theme park’s revised and expanded minigame playground.
I opted to skip previous all of that and deal with the principle story. Wutai is, briefly, wonderful. Edo-era structure is nestled right into a cliff in the course of a jungle, as if a Swiss mountain metropolis was portaled into the tropics. Wutai is dwelling to Yuffie, and she or he’s effervescently excited on the prospect of returning dwelling. I, too, was thrilled on the prospect of exploring a brand-new area. MAI even advised me about loads of non-compulsory actions, together with an altar for Hades, an non-compulsory summon from the late hours of the unique sport who didn’t seem in Ultimate Fantasy 7 Rebirth.
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Then I discovered a Queen’s Blood opponent and that’s what I spent the remaining time of my demo on. Look, I’m solely human. Queen’s Blood actually is the best minigame. And as Polygon reported all the way in which again in January, Revelation will characteristic a considerably expanded model of it. You’ll, nonetheless, have to start out your decks from scratch. In Rebirth, Queen’s Blood was technically a Cloud storyline. In Revelation, in line with a consultant for Sq. Enix, will probably be a Pink XIII storyline. (Bear in mind how keen he was to play in Rebirth’s event?) It’s solely pure that Pink would have his personal decks.
Because the capstone to an formidable multiyear challenge, it is smart that Revelation is popping every thing as much as 11 — extra get together members, extra customization, extra minigames, extra actions, extra locations to go, extra, extra, extra — regardless of Rebirth fielding criticism from some gamers for being too bloated. In 1997, Ultimate Fantasy 7 set the usual for what was then thought-about an expansive RPG. It was, in different phrases, a revelation. It might have taken three video games for the total image to coalesce, however 30 years after it first entered cultural canon, Ultimate Fantasy 7 would possibly as soon as once more set that new commonplace.
Ultimate Fantasy 7 Revelation shall be released on April 8, 2027, for PlayStation 5, Home windows PC, and Xbox Collection X.