Yesterday was the 1st PlayStation State Of Play of the year and unless you are a fan of one particular franchise, it was a bit underwhelming. Many PlayStaton fans were expecting updates on major upcoming titles like Horizon Forbidden West, God Of War Ragnarok, and/or whatever Kojima Productions could be working on. Did we get that at all in the slightest? No, not at all. What we did get were a few updates on known games that are coming out soon like Returnal, Death Loop, Solar Ash and Kena: Bridge of Spirits. We also got to see a new game called Sifu from studio Sloclap that reminded me a lot of Absolver with it’s whole Martial Arts theme.
However, PlayStation saved the best news for last! Not only is Final Fantasy VII Remake getting an update for PS5, it’s also getting exclusive DLC (DownLoadable Content)! Yuffie, one of the optional party members from the original FF7, is getting her own side story in Midgar. Along with another (new) AVALANCHE party member, Sonon. It seems like this piece of dlc is only available for PS5 though. Coming to PS5 June 10th 2021.
Yuffie and new party member, Sonon, during combat. Image from PlayStation.
Back to the PS5 update, if you have a PS4 copy of FF VII: Remake already you can get the PS5 upgrade for free. What exactly does that entail? Well The State of Play called attention to several specific improvements. The lighting in certain areas of the game looks brighter and more vibrant than ever. Textures appear to be slightly better, mostly noticeable in Cloud’s hair. The particle and fog effects are much better looking. Load times are drastically faster than they were on PS4! There is also Graphics mode and Performance mode, Graphics mode is 4K while Performance mode is a smooth 60 frames-per-second. There is a new “Normal (Classic)” difficulty mode added as well. Lastly they added a much needed “Photo Mode” with adjustable zoom, filters, and effects. I’m very excited about these new improvements. But wait, that isn’t all the FF7 news for today!
Final Fantasy VII: The First Soldier
The First Soldier will be a Battle Royale style game, here is what the in-game HUD looks like so far. You can see how it is clearly designed for mobile gaming.
Later in the day, Square-Enix announced Final Fantasy VII: The First Soldier, a mobile Battle Royale game. The premise seems to be that it takes place 30 or so years before FF7 and focuses on Shinra’s efforts to start the SOLDIER program, according to an article from Gamespot. The teaser trailer showed various combatants fighting each other with sub-machine guns, rifles, swords, fists, magic, and even summoned creatures. Available for iOS and Android this year, let’s hope this turns out well. It’s interesting to see Square-Enix entering the Battle Royale space but if they were going to it makes perfect sense to use FF7 since it’s already one of the more established and fleshed out FF games that has military hardware featured. Be on the look out for this title sometime later this year.
Final Fantasy VII: Ever Crisis
Ever Crisis will feature turn-based combat with executable commands.
Final Fantasy VII: Ever Crisis is a more compact but complete FF7 experience designed for mobile. At first glance it looks like a chibi-fied version of FFVII Remake, with small squishy characters on the world map and properly scaled characters in combat, similar to Final Fantasy XV Pocket Edition. Ever Crisis uses a turn-based command mode for combat very similar to the “Classic mode” in FFVII Remake. That’s not all, Ever Crisis will feature the entire Final Fantasy VII Compilation in playable form! That means Crisis Core (which we do see a quick cut scene of, featuring a Chibi version of Zack), Before Crisis, Advent Children, and Dirge of Cerberus and of course FF VII itself.
What makes this so incredible is that up until now the total FF VII Compilation was scattered on different game systems and formats. Before Crisis was a cell phone game, Advent Children was a CGI movie, Crisis Core was on the ill-fated PSP, Dirge Of Cerberus was on PS2, and the original FF VII was on PS1. Now they will all be accessible as a mobile title delivered in monthly chapters and the full FF VII story can finally be told as a whole. Even though it won’t be a full console experience I am very excited about this news. Unfortunately we won’t get the first few chapters until sometime in 2022.
Ever Crisis will be the most complete version of the FF VII story. Image from CNET.
Are you as excited about all this Final Fantasy VII goodness as I am? Comment your reactions to this news down below! For more opinion pieces, news, and reviews follow and subscribe GNN here on our website or our socials. Our Facebook can be found here and our Twitter page is here.
