Kudos to Square Enix for feeding the hype train for Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, which is literally the most anticipated title of 2024, as per The Game Awards, with a constant drip of information – not too much, but enough to keep fans excited and fuel speculation.
As part of a series of interviews with Game Informer, Square Enix is teasing something huge regarding the portrayal of Sephiroth in the second act of the Final Fantasy VII Remake.
The new game promises to delve deeper into Sephiroth’s character, potentially hinting at a redemption arc for one of gaming’s most complicated and tragic villains.
In the original 1997 Final Fantasy VII, Sephiroth’s presence was more understated, often only being mentioned by NPCs rather than seen. However, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth aims to change this approach,.
Producer Yoshinori Kitase and director Naoki Hamaguchi from the development team have expressed their intent to give Sephiroth a clearer and more defined role in the upcoming sequel. This includes more direct encounters with him, as opposed to the original game where he was largely an elusive figure.
Perhaps this is also largely influenced by the popularity of Sephiroth, who’s easily one of the most recognizable figures in gaming.
With that said, the hands-on experience with FF7 Rebirth reveals an interesting and welcome twist: players will team up with Sephiroth during the flashback mission to Mt. Nibel, a key moment from the original 1997 game. This mission will show him off as a heroic figure, contrasting sharply with his later fall from grace. What’s notable in Rebirth is Sephiroth, while still powerful, isn’t as overwhelmingly dominant as he was in the original game’s sequence. This toning down of his abilities makes him a more balanced and playable character, providing players with a unique opportunity to control him, albeit in a limited capacity.
More importantly, the development team has taken great care in handling Sephiroth’s character; the studio recognizes the sensitivity around altering such a well-known and influential villain. Rebirth seeks to provide more context for the one-winged angel’s transformation into the antagonist the internet so loves to fawn over. Hamaguchi shares that the depiction of Sephiroth’s discovery of the truth and his subsequent descent into darkness is crafted to evoke sympathy from the players. He believes that as the story progresses, players will relate not only to Cloud but also to Sephiroth, understanding him more deeply.
The approach in Rebirth is to explore Sephiroth’s backstory more extensively than in the original game, highlighting his time as a respected hero of Shinra’s SOLDIER program. This deeper dive into his past, including his relationship with his fellow 1st Class SOLDIER members, Angeal Hewley and Genesis Rhapsodos, and his connection to his birth mother, the late Lucrecia Crescent, adds layers to his character. It suggests that Sephiroth’s villainy is not born from inherent evil but from a series of tragic events and manipulations.
Hamaguchi’s comments suggest that players might see a different side of Sephiroth, understanding the circumstances that led to his villainous turn. The game might depict him as a tragic figure, a hero who was corrupted by external factors, rather than an inherently evil character.
While Sephiroth’s ultimate goals in the original game involved catastrophic actions like worldwide genocide, Rebirth is setting the stage for a more nuanced understanding of his motivations. The game contrasts Sephiroth’s grandiose if overly ambitious destructive aspirations with the more grounded, albeit still reprehensible, actions of Shinra, which is portrayed as a villainous corporation aware of its destructive nature but indifferent to the consequences.
FF7 Rebirth thus positions itself as a game that might challenge players’ perceptions of its key characters, especially Sephiroth. By providing more context to his actions and depicting his downfall in greater detail, the game could offer a more sympathetic view of a character traditionally seen as purely evil.
This exploration of Sephiroth’s character, when combined with the deep lore of the Final Fantasy VII universe, creates an anticipation among fans for a rich narrative experience.
Whether this leads to a full-fledged redemption arc for Sephiroth remains to be seen, but what is clear is that Rebirth aims to offer a more complex and multifaceted portrayal of its characters, inviting players to see them in a new light.
