Square Enix appears to have tapped into its inner Moogle and is dropping cheeky hints about a potential bigger reveal for Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth on June 8.
As pointed out by @Genki_JPN on Twitter, Square Enix has dropped a developer comment yesterday and today. After the second one arrived, it's now speculated that fans will be getting daily updates until the Summer Game Fest kicks off.
What makes this theory especially credible is the 7th developer comment would be released in time for the Geoff Keighley-hosted event.
As for the second developer comment, the game's director, Naoki Hamaguchi, revealed that FF7 Rebirth will let players "journey across the wide and multifacted world with a high degree of freedom, experiencing a myriad of different stories along the way."
Some are interpreting the phrasing as Square Enix's way of saying that FF7 Rebirth will have a semi-open world. This would be in line with the original game, which opens up quite a bit after the Midgar portion. Even though the map becomes so much larger and lets players walk around freely, the game still forces you to go to the next area to further the story. This gives players a feeling of freedom more than an actual open world, which, judging from how Final Fantasy 7 Remake (and its post-launch expansion, Intermission) handled it, wouldn't be a bad idea.
Most millennial gamers have fond memories of that first time getting out of Midgar in the original Final Fantasy 7 and it looks like FF7 Rebirth will try to replicate that feeling.
Somehow, we can't shake off this feeling that the middle child in the Final Fantasy 7 Remake trilogy will take notes from Final Fantasy 15, especially its "road trip vibes."
This would track with Tetsuya Nomura's history with the troubled development of Final Fantasy XV as well. He was the original director of the game from its initial date of announcement in May 2006 until December 2013, where "changes in development structure" forced him to leave and pursue other ventures. This turned out to be Final Fantasy VII Remake and now, its upcoming sequels, FF7 Rebirth, and the third game.
Even though Final Fantasy XV went through several changes in the decade before it finally hit the store shelves, the core structure was always the relationship between Noctis and his crew, Proto, Ignis, and Gladiolus.
If nothing else, it would be fun to see Cloud and the rest of the crew interact and talk with each other outside of what the story requires.
Although we have no care for when Square Enix inevitably stabs us in the gut again with that particularly heartbreaking expected death near the end of the game.
With 5 more days to go until Summer Game Fest, it's best to keep a close eye on the game's official Twitter account.
Speaking of Final Fantasy, it's now speculated that the reason why Square Enix is ramping up marketing for Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is the lackluster pre-order sales of Final Fantasy XVI. But, if you think about what's going on, the FFXVI Collector's Edition is always sold out, so we don't think Square Enix has any problems selling the next mainline entry in the series. Most likely, Square Enix just wants to keep people talking about Final Fantasy if only so that they can forget about its other failed ventures lately.
