Final Fantasy VII Revelation Brings the Highwind and New Combat Systems to the Finale

Final Fantasy VII Revelation is starting to look like a much larger conclusion to the remake trilogy, with Square Enix revealing a steady stream of new details over the past month. The third game will let you freely fly across the planet using the Highwind and take on massive enemies such as Ruby Weapon and Emerald Weapon.

Certain missions will also let you decide which party member you want to progress with, potentially changing the dialogue and events you experience along the way. On top of all that, two separate story DLCs have already been announced, giving the final chapter an even larger scope.

Revelation has a lot to live up to after Final Fantasy VII Remake and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. 

Rebirth really expanded the world and gave players a much larger adventure, so the final game has the tough job of tying the story together while also offering something new. With the latest announcements, Square Enix is not just trying to make Revelation bigger than the previous two games. 

The biggest piece of confirmed information is the game's release date. Final Fantasy VII Revelation is scheduled to launch on April 8, 2027, with the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC versions arriving on the same day. 

That simultaneous launch is notable because players previously had to deal with platform-specific release windows and long periods of waiting before the games became available elsewhere. This time, everyone will be able to start the final part of the journey together.

One of the biggest showcases for the game so far came from the Planet's Crisis trailer shown at Gamescom. The trailer gave players a look at several of the enormous weapons that will appear throughout the game, including the Ruby Weapon, Emerald Weapon, and Ultima Weapon. 

Emerald Weapon rises from the ocean, Ruby Weapon appears in the desert, and Ultima Weapon takes to the sky. The scale of these encounters suggests that Revelation is going to feature some of the trilogy's largest battles yet.

There is still plenty we do not know about how the weapons will fit into the story. It makes sense for Square Enix to connect at least some of these encounters directly to the main campaign, especially given how important the weapons are to the original Final Fantasy VII. 

Exploration is another area where Revelation is making significant progress. 

The game will reportedly feature the biggest open world seen across the remake trilogy, with Highwind playing a central role in how you move around the planet. Instead of simply selecting different regions from a map or relying heavily on fast travel, you will be able to board the airship and choose your route across the world. 

The return of Piko also adds another layer to exploration. The Chocobo from Rebirth will once again accompany you, but this time Piko will be more than just a way to travel around the world. Piko will grow stronger alongside you, gain new abilities, and even participate directly in battles. 

Rebirth already offered a large number of activities across its open-world regions, but some of them involved repeating similar tasks. With Revelation expanding the world even further, simply adding more content will not necessarily make exploration better. 

The variety of activities will need to grow alongside the size of the map so that the world feels meaningful rather than simply being filled with more objectives. The Highwind can help with that by giving you greater freedom to travel, but the content waiting at each destination will still matter.

Character control is also being expanded outside of combat. While exploring, you will reportedly be able to instantly switch between different party members instead of repeatedly opening menus to change who you control. 

That means you could move between characters such as Cloud, Yuffie, Tifa, and Barret without interrupting your exploration. The system appears to be more than a simple convenience feature because different characters could potentially have different ways of interacting with the environment.

Another example of how exploration could become more vertical is the grappling gun. 

We saw Yuffie using the device in Wutai to jump between buildings in the Gamescom trailer, hinting at a bigger role for rooftops and other higher areas in exploration. You may be able to reach places you couldn't reach before, and travel around cities more quickly. 

Instant character switching, and the ability to do so with character-specific powers, could make exploration more than just following map markers. Some areas might lead you to choose a certain party member for their movement options or how they interact with the environment.

If Square Enix builds areas around those differences, the open world could feel more dynamic and less like a collection of icons waiting to be cleared. It would also give each playable character a greater purpose outside of combat.

Combat is receiving one of the most significant changes through the new FITS system. At first glance, the system might look like a way of changing character costumes, but the outfits actually affect how characters fight by giving them new commands, moves, and combat roles. 

The Warrior class focuses on aggressive combat and makes Limit Breaks easier to use. Knight allows a character to draw enemy attention and protect nearby party members, while Black Mage specializes in elemental magic across four different elements and can reduce the MP cost of the element currently being used. 

Summoner allows the character to fight alongside creatures they summon. While four classes might initially sound limited, combat director Teruki Endo explained that the goal was to develop them deeply instead of creating a much larger number of shallow options.

FITS will also become available relatively early in the game. 

The system is expected to unlock around the fifth or sixth hour, and the development team originally considered requiring players to complete missions or spend considerable time working toward the outfits. 

The possibilities for character combinations are particularly compelling. Cloud could potentially become a Black Mage, Tifa could take on the Knight role, and Vincent could become a Summoner, creating very different approaches to combat depending on how you build your party. 

Rather than replacing the action RPG combat system that worked so well in Rebirth, Revelation appears to be adding the classic Final Fantasy Job concept on top of it. That could give the final game considerably more depth while keeping the foundation established by the previous entries.

Cid and Vincent are also finally receiving clearer explanations of how they will play. Cid will fight using a long-range spear that he can throw or drive into enemies before following up with additional attacks. 

His moveset is especially suited to fighting enemies in the air, and combining him with the Knight FIT could turn him into a character who protects teammates while controlling the battlefield. Vincent, meanwhile, uses firearms at mid-range but is designed to move much more aggressively than Barret.

Vincent can mix evasive movement into his attacks and constantly reposition himself during battles. 

One of his most significant features is the ability to transform whenever he wants during combat without needing to meet a special condition first. You will not have to build a Limit Break or reduce his health to a particular level before using his transformations. 

Revelation is also introducing a character-focused mission system that gives you more control over how certain parts of the journey unfold. For some missions, you will be able to choose which party member takes part, and that choice can affect specific events, dialogue, and gameplay sections. 

However, this development does not mean the game will have multiple endings. Hamaguchi has confirmed that Revelation will have one ending, but the journey toward that ending can change based on the choices you make.

That system could serve as a more advanced version of the relationship mechanics introduced in Rebirth. Completing a mission with Tifa could lead to a different conversation about Cloud's past, while choosing Barret could result in a scene focused more heavily on Shinra or the planet. 

The overall story will still reach the same conclusion, but the relationships you build and the scenes you experience along the way can differ. Queen's Blood is also returning, this time with a major side story centered around Red XIII, giving one of Rebirth's most popular side activities another role in the overall adventure.

The DLC plans for Revelation are already attracting attention as well. 

Square Enix has confirmed two story expansions, with one titled Sephiroth and the other titled Vincent & the Turks. It's still unclear how these stories fit together, but the Sephiroth expansion could explore his past in more detail, and the Vincent and Turks story could connect to some of the Dirge of Cerberus material. 

The physical editions have also raised some concerns. The PS5 and Xbox versions will come on a single disc, but additional data will need to be downloaded before the game can be played. The Nintendo Switch 2 version will use a game-key card, meaning the physical package will not function in the traditional way that some collectors expect. 

This can be frustrating for gamers who care about owning a physical product, especially when considering whether or not they’ll be able to play the game years from now if the servers required to run it are no longer live.

Still, Revelation seems to be an ambitious end to the trilogy. 

You will be able to traverse the planet at will with the Highwind, fight giant Weapons, upgrade Piko to become a better partner, swap characters while exploring in real time, and switch character roles with the FITS system.

The greatest challenge for Square Enix will be to make all of these systems work together without slowing down the experience. Rebirth already had a huge amount of content, and Revelation is trying to go even further while bringing the story of the trilogy to an end.

If the studio can balance the open world, character systems, combat options, side content, and narrative, the final game could feel like a true culmination of everything laid down in Remake and Rebirth. 

With the Highwind finally having unlocked the planet and the story drawing to a close, April 8, 2027, is now set as the date when players can see how this version of Final Fantasy VII ultimately ends.