After nearly a whole year of silence on Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, Square Enix has randomly decided to start giving us some updates on the game's progress in the form of comments from the developers. Yesterday, it confirmed that development on the game was going according to plan and that the team is still trying to "nail down" a release date. Now it's seemingly even confirmed one of the biggest questions everyone has about the game - whether it'll feature an open world.
Over on the official Final Fantasy 7 Twitter page, the account shared a developer comment from Rebirth's director Naoki Hamaguchi, which responds to the question, "How will players journey through the world outside of Midgar in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth?". Hamaguchi's answer all but confirms that Rebirth will feature an open world to explore this time around, without explicitly saying that or the word "overworld".
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
— FINAL FANTASY VII (@finalfantasyvii) June 3, 2023
Developer comment number 2#FF7R pic.twitter.com/WKQkBPWWsJ
Hamaguchi said, "Players will be able to journey across the wide and multifaceted world with a high degree of freedom, experiencing a myriad of different stories along the way". The emphasis on the world being "wide" and players getting a "high degree of freedom" is basically saying open-world, even without using that term.
Ever since Final Fantasy 7 Remake was confirmed not to feature an open world and that Square Enix had instead gone for something more linear, the biggest question for Rebirth is whether it'd follow the same route, especially now that Cloud and the gang are outside of Midgar. It didn't make much sense to go linear, but we'd also seen and heard nothing that said otherwise, so it's been one of the game's biggest questions.
In fairness, Square Enix has been dropping some hints about the overworld in Rebirth. Back before we even know the sequel's name, Tetsuya Nomura noted that he'd seen Cloud "running around in the wild", which seemed like a subtle hint towards more freedom in the sequel, or at least some grassier locations.
Then, in an interview regarding the Yuffie Intermission DLC, Hamaguchi noted that the next installment would "involve Cloud and company to leave Midgar and explore the world map, our next challenge will be to create gameplay that leverages the vastness of the world", which all but confirmed it too. Now, Square Enix is directly facing the question and putting it forward as one of the big features of Rebirth.
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Source: https://www.thegamer.com/final-fantasy-7-rebirth-open-world-confirmed-square-enix/
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