Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade on January 22, 2026, which was revealed at today’s lengthy . This is the first entry in the remake trilogy and primarily takes place in the opening city of Midgar. You’ll have to wait until Final Fantasy VII Rebirth to explore the overworld map, and there’s no Switch 2 release date for that one yet.
This release does include the , which involves the ninja Yuffie on a mission to steal powerful items from the evil Shinra corporation. That story takes place after the main campaign.
There’s a trailer and it looks gorgeous, so the Switch 2 should be able to handle this one. Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade originally . The long-awaited title was more of a reimagining than a straight remake of the iconic JRPG. The game still managed to garner critical acclaim, despite drastic changes from the original.
It was followed by , with a third game on the way to close out the trilogy. There’s no name for this final entry and we don’t have a release date, as it’s still in active development.
The Stellar Blade demo has been out since March 29, and if you manage to beat it, your save data will carry over to the full game when it launches as a PlayStation 5 exclusive on April 26. One thing I was curious about was the “Skin Suit,” an outfit for protagonist Eve that basically has her traversing the world in the nude and makes the game way more challenging. Surprisingly, at least in the demo, it’s an incredibly easy thing to unlock, so since I just learned how to get it, I figured I’d teach you how to get it, too. Sharing is caring, after all. – Levi Winslow Read More
Of all the creatures and enemies you expect to encounter in Unicorn Overlord, a goat isn’t on that list. Yet goats abound in Vanillaware’s tactics RPG, at least on Albion, an island kingdom that players reach late in the game. These goats are friendly, and produce milk. But befriending these animals and actually getting them to produce Goat Milk is a task that Unicorn Overlord doesn’t explain to you. So, if you are pursuing certain quests, you’ll need some sooner or later. So, here’s exactly how you can get Goat Milk in Unicorn Overlord. – Willa Rowe Read More
Image: Atlus, Atlus, Screenshot: Square Enix / Claire Jackson / Kotaku, Square Enix / Claire Jackson / Kotaku, Square Enix / Claire Jackson / Kotaku, Square Enix / Claire Jackson / Kotaku
We get it, you’re probably very into Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth and Unicorn Overlord this week. So are we. And if you’re stuck on a tricky boss fight, unsure of who to take out on a date, or want to finish that capture quest, we’ve got you covered.
We’ve got guides on the games to play after finishing Unicorn Overlord and how to level fast in that very same game. We’ve also got tips for getting all those Cactuar Caper locations, and how not to suck at one of FF7 Rebirth’s mini games. Scroll through for all the best tips that came out of this week.
As many people have said on dating profiles (or mothers on their wall art), I love a video game that makes me laugh, and I am delighted Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth has been so goddamn good at it.
In my time with the game, it has asked me to do absurd things like play a card game against a regular-ass dog. It has featured Cloud Strife, the badass protagonist with a giant sword, carrying a little cushion around for him to use on benches. It’s got dudes who play acoustic guitar at you like the Kens in Barbie, the franchise’s second homoerotic biker duel, and a lot of other things I want to talk about but would probably be spoilers. I mean, Chadley???
But if you’ll allow me the indulgence, I need to talk about one in particular.
Consider this a spoiler warning. I’m serious. I’m going to embed a photo of Cloud Strife playing the piano (also funny) to try and spare casual scrollers, but right underneath it, there will be a YouTube video of one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen in video games, one that I recommend seeing for yourself if you’re interested in playing through Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. (You can’t miss it, it’s part of the story.)
Okay, ready?
Image: Square Enix
Here it is:
There are a lot of incredible things about this scene, which takes place in Chapter 5 aboard the Shinra-8 cruise to Costa del Sol. First, like a lot of things in Rebirth, it’s a gag lifted directly from the original Final Fantasy 7, but it’s been given such a lavish reinterpretation that it becomes an entirely different kind of funny, a throwaway gag made into a comedic centerpiece for no reason at all.
As previously established in Final Fantasy 7 Remake, the characters are more than happy to break out into dance, but that still doesn’t prepare you for seeing Red XIII do a Michael Jackson impression, or the (smaller but funnier) sight gag of the canine warrior trying to cross his legs across the table from Cloud. (Also the kid crying at the sight of him kills me every time.)
I don’t think you get any of this in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth without Square Enix’s crucial development decision to never shy away from or soften the oddity of the original game’s polygonal abstraction. Under the older game’s art constraints, the unrealities of, say, riding a dolphin or meeting a talking cat are much easier to roll with, and not particularly unusual.
Recreating these moments with such a high degree of realism is in itself funny, an endearing commitment to a bit I can’t believe a massive studio signed up for. It’s also both a necessary counterbalance to an otherwise dire and melodramatic story — yes, the heroes of Rebirth must also fight for a world that has room for fun and levity — and a bit of a eulogy for this kind of goofballery in modern big-budget games.
Sure, every once in a while we get something like Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, the latest in a long line of games that always show players a tremendously goofy time — but Final Fantasy 7’s comedy is something different. It’s a relic from a time when games were a little more mysterious, a little more challenging to interpret, with a little more room to surprise. Maybe publishers will see people eagerly sharing photos of Red XIII riding a chocobo and think, hey, this stuff would be good to have in video games again.
Final Fantasy 7 and its compilation media have introduced some of my favorite video game characters. There’s Cloud Strife, the emotionally cagey but endlessly awkward dude who just wants to be cool. His childhood friend, a sullen-eyed Tifa, brings a sense of kindness and warmth to the most dire of situations. Hell, even the villains are charming in their own ways. I wouldn’t want to be a generic Shinra lapdog, but maybe I’d go and be one for Rufus, whose cutting-edge sense of style somehow makes me forget he’s the CEO of an evil company.
Then there’s Chadley, an unfortunate character whose design looks like if you combined 9S from Nier: Automata with a Boy Scout.
Chadley made his series debut in Final Fantasy 7 Remake when he recruited Cloud to collect battle intel by undertaking virtual fighting challenges. As we learned in Remake, Chadley is a humanoid robot created by Shinra’s Professor Hojo. Although he worked for that evil and cruel scientist, Chadley seemed harmless enough and Cloud could actually help free him from Hojo’s programming toward the end of Remake, turning him into a fully independent being. Now, he’s back in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth and ready to help Cloud and Avalanche’s cause.
In Remake, Chadley served as a perfectly adequate character to talk to every now and again. Cloud could talk to him when he needed to, but he now plays a pretty big role in the larger world and gameplay in Rebirth. Toward the beginning of the game, he tasks Cloud with surveying each region by visiting different geographic locations — like a special spring or a cave dedicated to a summon — and scanning them with a device to collect data. Given that exploring each region and all the points forms a major part of the game, this forces players to interact with Chadley and hear his boring chatter frequently.
Image: Square Enix via Polygon
The scanning device Chadley gives Cloud doubles as a communications device that he can call Cloud up on at any moment. Chadley doesn’t talk every single time Cloud scans a new location, but he jabbers on about all kinds of random knowledge. If Cloud slashes a rock to find a Summon Sanctuary, he will give you background information on a god’s mythology. If Cloud scans a Lifespring or a tower, he might talk about any local regional phenomena. He frequently pops in with basic facts about the region, and then dips out. And his excited, pubescent voice doesn’t hold up well over long stretches.
Chadley functions as a living encyclopedia, but his prattling isn’t all that helpful. Something that I appreciated about Remake was how the developers showed us the way of the world. Little tasks, like going to another neighborhood, took additional quests to secure documents like ID cards and helped give a sense of Shrina’s tight grip on the city. We learned about the city by how it felt to play and the stories of characters. Now, Chadley is just used as a way to dump a bunch of decontextualized lore into a giant world. Sure, It’ll make great fodder for fan-run wiki pages down the line, but it doesn’t make for a compelling way to show us the larger world.
Luckily, there is at least one thing you can do to lower the overall Chadley levels in the game. The young savant largely talks through the built-in speaker on the PlayStation 5 controller, and you can mute it in the game settings. Unfortunately, this just means he’ll talk through the screen, but it at least minimizes any potential Chadley jump scares through the controller.
Overall, Chadley comes across as the annoying familiar that was never needed in the first place. The game has plenty of other, more interesting characters. Personally, I’d be more interested in learning more about what Red XIII has to say about a given desert landscape, or hearing what Barret thinks about the gods, rather than getting an encyclopedia-like entry on each topic via Chadley. So while I appreciate learning more about the larger world, I think I’d be better off without him.
This week we’re going back to school,collecting Pals, and being reborn—that’s a lot of stuff to do without some tips. Palworld, the breakout hit from developer PocketPair, got a handful of major bug fixes that will make your creature-collecting a lot easier. And Atlus’ recent Persona 3 Reloadrelease means you’ll want to make sure you’re a Grade A student and a damn good friend—luckily we’re here to help you with all of that. The week also saw the surprise-debut of a Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth demo, and with progress carrying over to the main game, you’ll want to make sure you do everything you can with Sephiroth and company.
That’s why we’ve gathered the biggest, best, and most helpful Kotaku tips of the week, all in one spot. You’re welcome.
Square Enix has released a free demo for Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth on PlayStation 5, after showing off the second part of its remake of the 1997 classic in a dedicated State of Play stream on Tuesday.
The demo comes in two parts, with the second to be added later in an update. The first part, available now, is almost the first full chapter of the game. It lets you play as hero Cloud and antagonist Sephiroth in an early flashback section called “the Nibelheim episode,” based on a memorable moment from the original game. It’s very dramatic, and makes a brilliant jumping-on point for the Final Fantasy 7 story.
The second part of the demo, which will be added between now and the game’s release on Feb. 29, gives players a taste of combat and exploration in a more open setting, Junon, ending in a boss fight at the fishing village of Under Junon. In this second section, you can pick from Cloud, Tifa, Aerith, Barret, and Red XIII to form a party of three, and experiment with the characters’ synergies as you hunt down monsters on the world map before facing a boss. Polygon had the opportunity to play this section back in September, and it’s a great taster for what the majority of Rebirth will play like.
Sadly, since the demo features sections from across Rebirth, progression won’t carry over to the full game once it releases for PS5 on Feb. 29.
Elsewhere in the State of Play, Square Enix offered a deep dive on Rebirth’s structure and features, including the often surreal and funny side quests and minigames that will flesh out what looks to be a colorful and expansive adventure.
Polygon recently had a chance to play the opening hours of Rebirth. After that momentous first chapter recalling the Nibelheim Incident, the action moved to the picturesque town of Kalm, where Cloud and his friends are resting after the events of Final Fantasy 7 Remake. There, we could chat with the party and locals and explore some of the game’s systems, including a promising Gwent-alike collectible card game called Queen’s Blood. After an escape from a Shinra raid on Kalm, the action moved out onto the Grasslands for open exploration reminiscent of the Junon section of the demo.
It’s time for a second trip to Seattle in The Last of Us Part IIRemastered. Originally shipped in 2020, Part II amps up the scope of the series, as well as the violence. The result is a dynamic, stealthy survival horror romp that takes place decades after a world-ending pandemic. It can be a tough game to play, and Remastered also includes a new roguelike mode for those who want an even greater challenge. – Ari Notis Read More
Multi-disciplinary musician and producer Lauren Mia recently released her highly anticipated debut album RE:BIRTH – an impressive 13 track composition is a vulnerable and symbolic tale of growth, self-reflection and actualization that drives through the tracks and into the spirit of her audience.
Boasting expertly produced analog soundscapes and ferocious melodic chord progressions, the album expands upon the composer’s roots in Melodic Techno and Progressive House. Starting off with “Initium”, the Latin word for beginning, the album’s triad of singles leading up to its ultimate release follow, which put just a sample of Lauren’s musical range in the spotlight. Listeners saw the shadow-work inspired “Shadow”, plant medicine influenced “Ceremony”, and flow-state fueled “Ashes In Paradise” showcase the diversity to be expected from her first full body of work.
With her first hard techno deliveries like “444”, expansive melodic spectacles like “OliM”, brooding progressive productions like “Fidelity”, and energetic, percussively eclectic installments like “Lakshmi” – RE:BIRTH is a full-bodied delivery of expansive electronic music that while varied, unequivocally boasts Lauren Mia’s impactful, dynamic signature sound throughout each of its measures.
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth isn’t out until early next year, but ahead of the game’s launch it’s been rated and reviewed by the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB). Turns out the Teen-rated RPG will contain a “bodacious beach bod.” The question is: Who’s rocking that body?
Three Things We Learned From The Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth Demo
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, coming exclusively to PS5 on February 29, 2024, picks up after the events of 2020’s Final Fantasy VII Remake and is the next entry in Square Enix’s three-part Final Fantasy VII remake project. We’ve already seen a few trailers for the upcoming RPG, but we’ve learned a bit more about Rebirth thanks to a newly posted rating description on the ESRB’s official website.
The ESRB’s rating description explains that some women in the game are “designed with revealing outfits” including “deep cleavage.” The ESRB also states that Rebirth contains “suggestive dialogue” and close-up shots of characters’ bodies. It points to one example where the camera pans to someone, presumably wearing a revealing outfit, who then says: “Just admit it. You’re obviously captivated by my bodacious beach bod.”
Now, the way the ESRB describes this makes it impossible to say who has (or thinks they have) a bodacious beach bod. So who, among the cast of FF7 characters, seems the most likely to say they have a bodacious beach bod? Place your bets now!
Other secrets revealed by the ESRB
The ESRB’s rating description of Rebirth also confirms that at least one character will be “impaled” by a sword in slow motion. Famously, and beware spoilers for a game released in the ‘90s, Aerith was killed by sword-wielding Sephiroth in the original game. You could describe what happens in that original sequence as “slow motion,” too. It seems the new remake sequel will do the same. The question is, who gets stabbed this time around?
In October, Rebirth director Naoki Hamaguchi promised a “big surprise” during that famous, iconic death. But he didn’t elaborate beyond that tease. Does he mean that someone else will get stabbed in slow motion? Perhaps nobody gets stabbed and Sephiroth just misses and runs away embarrassed. Or would it be really surprising to stab Aerith and trick everyone into thinking you wouldn’t do that this time around? Maybe someone just has a vision of a slow-mo stab. I’m not sure, really.
Oh and finally, the ESRB confirms that some characters get drunk and slur their speech and you’ll hear people say shit, asshole, and prick. I can’t wait!
Here’s the full ESRB description for FF7 Rebirth, coming February 2024 to PS5.
This is an action role-playing game in which players follow the story of a mercenary (Cloud Strife) on a quest to save the planet from evil. Players explore fantasy landscapes, perform missions, and battle monsters and soldiers in frenetic melee combat. Characters use swords, staffs, guns, and magic spells to fight monsters and human soldiers; combat is highlighted by impact sounds, cries of pain, and explosions. Cutscenes depict further instances of violence, sometimes with splatters/pools of blood: characters impaled or slashed by swords, sometimes with slow-motion effects; an assassin throwing a spinning blade at a targeted figure; characters shot by soldiers.
Some female characters are designed with revealing outfits (e.g., deep cleavage); suggestive dialogue sometimes accompanies camera panning/close-ups of characters’ bodies/outfits (e.g., “Just admit it. You’re obviously captivated by my bodacious beach bod.”). The game contains some alcohol content: as Cloud, players can drink a version of moonshine while at a bar; cutscenes sometimes feature drunk characters slurring their speech. A handful of scenes depict characters smoking cigars or out of hookahs. The words “sh*t,” “a*shole,” and “pr*ck” appear in the game.
Today at New York Comic Con, it was revealed that voice actor Matt Mercer, perhaps best known as the Dungeon Master of popular actual-play webseries Critical Role, will be starring as gunslinger Vincent Valentine in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, the second chapter in Square Enix’s ongoing remake of the classic ‘90s Japanese role playing game.
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Previous trailers for Final Fantasy VII Rebirth have showed off a variety of different locales, as well as characters not featured in the first chapter, 2020’s Final Fantasy VII Remake, including Vincent Valentine. Much of the game remains shrouded in mystery, however, as the remake project isn’t just a faithful retelling of the original story, but sees its narrative branching off in some bold new directions. Today at NYCC, a panel featuring voice actors from the highly anticipated sequel revealed a bit more about what to expect.
While Matt Mercer did voice a few characters in the first entry of the remake project, they were mostly minor NPCs with names like “Wall Market Thug.” During the October 14 panel, Mercer revealed that he auditioned for Valentine in Rebirth, saying that he “put all of his energy” into the audition. Then, he didn’t hear back for nine months. And when he finally did get a callback, it only said that he’d once again play nameless NPCs.
In what he described as a prank played on him by the folks producing the game, Mercer said he was brought into the booth to record lines for a random NPC when the screen containing the script started glitching out before fading to black and presenting him with another character: that of Vincent Valentine. Quite a way to find out you’ve got the job.
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth releases on February 29, 2024 for PlayStation 5.
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth continues after the eventsof Final Fantasy VII Remake, which took the first major section of 1997’s classic RPG Final Fantasy VII and translated it into an action-RPG. Remake’s storyline also changed up some details, both big and small, to create what appears to be a new timeline that is both separate from but somehow connected to that of the original game and its many spin-offs.
PlayStation / Square Enix
Today’s trailer for the upcoming Rebirth shows this new sequel will continue to shake things up, depicting Zack from Crisis Core carrying Cloud into a city, something that doesn’t happen in the original game. (Also…Cloud riding a Segway?)
Interesting stuff! Anyway, the new trailer looks cool, so you might be excited to pre-order the game ahead of its February 29, 2024 debut. About that. The standard edition of the game will cost $69.99, and the “deluxe” will be $99.99. But the biggest, most expensive version of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is the collector’s edition…and it costs more than a Nintendo Switch.
What’s included in the Collector’s Edition of FF7 Rebirth?
•Final Fantasy VII Rebirth – Deluxe Edition Art BookMini SoundtrackSteelBook® Case
•Large Collectible Statue Approx. 48cm / 19 inches tall and depicting the iconic antagonist Sephiroth in highly detailed sculpting. The wing can be detached.
•Moogle Trio Summoning Materia (DLC) A summoning materia that can call “Moogle Trio” in the game.
•Magic Pot Summoning Materia (DLC) A summoning materia that can call “Magic Pot” in the game.
•Accessory: Reclaimant Choker (DLC) A choker with an effect of restoring HP when an enemy is defeated.
•Armor: Orchid Bracelet (DLC) A bracelet that gives courage to traverse an expanding world.
•Armor: Midgar Bangle Mk. II (DLC) A bracelet worn by travelers leaving Midgar.
So, does all of this sound like it’s worth $350? For some, the answer is probably yes. For others, a solid maybe. And for many out there, like me, the answer is a strong “nope.”
Personally, the prospect of a $350 edition of a video game makes me roll my eyes so hard they fall out of my head and I have to scramble around on the floor for a few minutes to pick them back up. But I’m also not a person who cares much for statues or collectibles. At the very least it’s nice that Square Enix is including a physical copy of the game in this pricey package!
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth launches on February 29, 2024 exclusively on PlayStation 5. The base game costs $70. The deluxe edition is $100. And as mentioned, the Collector’s Edition, at $350, costs more than an Xbox Series S.
