If only Final Fantasy fans could cast Haste on time and make it go faster, because Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth’s release on the PlayStation 5 on February 29 couldn’t come any sooner.
If it’s any consolation though, January 31 is just right around the corner and it’s a pretty significant date for franchise fans.
For those who don’t know, January 31 is “FF7 Day”, a registered date with the Japan Anniversary Association, which is a Japanese national organization that tracks dates of significant cultural importance. January 31 marks the day that Square Enix originally released the first FF7 game in Japan in 1997.
Square Enix is one of the few developers that release demos of their upcoming games despite risking backlash. The latest mainline entry in the series, Final Fantasy 16, had a demo ten days before its official release (the game was made available on June 22) last year. On the other hand, FF7 Remake’s demo came out on March 2, well over a month before the game came out on April 10 in 2020.
Thus, fans were always expecting Square to release the FF7 Rebirth demo sooner rather than later.
However, the reason January 31 is a particularly significant date, aside from the FF7 Day celebrations, is that it’s also when Sony will hold its first State of Play this year.
According to the official announcement, Rise of the Ronin and Stellar Blade highlight the 40-minute event. It should also dedicate a few minutes to FF7 Rebirth, an upcoming PS5 exclusive from their longtime partners. It’s possible FF7 Rebirth’s next trailer will be the last to be shown at the event along with the confirmation that the demo will be available on the PlayStation Network as the showcase ends.
The Final Fantasy 7 Remake trilogy is a culmination of the collective desire of fans to see Cloud Strife and the rest of the party on modern platforms. After teasing it with a technical demo on PlayStation 3, fans bugged Square to turn it into a full game. It eventually listened in 2015, confirming that the original 1997 JRPG classic will be remade from the ground up. The success of FF7 Remake paved the way for FF7 Rebirth and the still-untitled third game in the remake trilogy.
Unlike FF7 Remake, FF7 Rebirth was made with PlayStation 5 in mind. Thus, the sequel will take full advantage of PS5’s hardware, including its use of larger capacity discs compared to PS4. Despite its best efforts, the production team faced difficulties squeezing the amount of content in FF7 Rebirth into a single disc, eventually settling with two discs instead of three. It will cover the post-Midgar section of the release, all the way to the Forgotten City. Finally, Square confirmed that Zack Fair will be a playable character in FF7 Rebirth.
