---
title: 'Final Fantasy 7 Revelation: Second-Take Preview'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=Dw605Ix7W78'
video_id: 'Dw605Ix7W78'
date: 2026-09-18
duration_sec: 483
channel: 'IGN'
---

# Final Fantasy 7 Revelation: Second-Take Preview

> Source: [Final Fantasy 7 Revelation: Second-Take Preview](https://youtube.com/watch?v=Dw605Ix7W78)

## Summary

This video is a hands-on preview of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, the third installment in Square Enix's remake trilogy. The presenter spent two hours exploring the game's open world, revisiting familiar locations, testing new mechanics like the grapple gun and Vincent's transformations, and interviewing the director about design choices.

### Key Points

- **Preview Session Overview** [00:00] — Two-hour hands-on session with Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, featuring free exploration via the Highwind airship, revisiting areas from Rebirth, and a glimpse of Yuffie's quest in Wutai.
- **Third Act Structure** [01:23] — The game plays like the third act of a JRPG, fitting as the conclusion of the remake trilogy. The demo dropped players into Chapter 4 with a large party and free traversal.
- **Revisiting Familiar Locations** [02:22] — The presenter enjoyed exploring changed areas like the Grasslands, now filled with stronger enemies due to the approaching meteor. Side quests are all new, but the presenter worries about bloat from checklist-style content.
- **Skydiving and Verticality** [03:47] — Players can skydive from the Highwind to land anywhere, adding verticality and freedom. The mechanic was inspired by Fortnite, as the original game's airship could land anywhere but that wasn't feasible in a high-fidelity world.
- **Wutai and Grapple Gun** [05:06] — Wutai is fully realized with tall buildings, and the new grapple gun makes traversal fun, including a grapple race. The combat is similar to Rebirth but with a new FIT system for assigning classes.
- **Vincent Valentine's Combat** [05:49] — Vincent is the presenter's favorite character, able to transform into a Galian Beast form at will, with no limit on swapping, though staying transformed reduces max HP. His human form focuses on ranged attacks.
- **Large Party and Flexibility** [06:39] — Chapter 4 gives access to six characters with distinct playstyles, and Cloud and Tifa are absent for story reasons, offering high flexibility early on.

### Conclusion

The preview suggests Final Fantasy VII Rebirth will deliver a strong ending to the trilogy if it maintains the sense of player freedom and choice shown in this slice. The presenter is hopeful but cautious about content bloat.

## Transcript

Two hours in Final Fantasy VII Revelation goes fast. I was stunned when the PR rep told us our session was wrapping up. I felt like it had only just gotten underway. At least that's what I thought until I reflected on everything I'd done.
I zoomed around the skies above its open world map aboard the Highwind Airship, revisited some of the earliest areas from Final Fantasy VII Rebirth to see how they'd changed, and saw a decent chunk of Yuffie's political quest in her hometown of Wutai.
This game is enormous, and Square Enix set us loose to tackle the previous sessions however we saw fit, revealing just a glimpse of a journey that's seemingly even more focused on freedom than its predecessors.
The big question is if that freedom will allow me to better handle much of the bloat that really dragged down my personal experience with Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. A quick note, I wasn't allowed to directly capture my gameplay at the preview event,
so this footage was provided by Square Enix. You unfortunately won't see everything I talk about, given the sheer size and open nature of the demo. I had access to the same preview build as IGN's Michael Hyam,
who shared his thoughts in our first hands-on preview of Revelation last week. Even though it was the same demo, everyone I spoke to had wildly different experiences. That's because the best and most accurate thing I can say about Revelation
is that it plays like the third act of a JRPG. Of course, this does mark the end of Square Enix's experimental Final Fantasy VII Remake series that's retelling the story of the PlayStation original across three games,
so it makes sense that the third game would play like the third act. But I'm impressed with how hard Square Enix is leaning into this idea. I was dropped into Chapter 4 of the story where Yuki, Barret, Nanaki, and newcomers Sid and Vincent are set loose to explore the continent thanks to Sid's airship, the Highwind.
Free traversal over an entire world map is usually reserved for an RPG final hours but if you treat this whole trilogy as one enormous game that the point we reached and I enjoyed buzzing around while taking in a bird eye view of everything previously explored in Rebirth as well as a few new areas
Chapter 4 is still relatively early on. Rebirth had 14 chapters, while Remake had 18, but at this point I was free to go wherever I wanted. I genuinely enjoy sequels that take place on the same world map as their predecessors.
Tears of the Kingdom or Pokemon Gold and Silver are the first two that come to mind. So the first thing I wanted to do was see what has changed in familiar locations in the time since Rebirth. The largest settlement, Hall, is currently trying to accommodate an influx of refugees.
After trying and failing to skydive into Midgar, I checked out the Grasslands, which was the first open zone we reached in Rebirth. This used to be a relatively clean area filled with fodder enemies placed there for players taking their first steps outside of Midgar.
Now hulking evil beasts roam these lands, and it felt noticeably different to explore than last time. I interviewed Revelation director Naoki Hamaguchi about the team's approach to revisiting areas we've already seen before,
and he told me that the approaching meteor has caused seismic shifts in familiar places, leading to geographical differences. And all of the side quests in these areas are going to be new, too. After landing in the grasslands, I was met with probably around a dozen pings,
leading me to various side objectives in the region. This gave me some not-so-pleasant flashbacks to Rebirth. I do like that game overall, but have to admit that the amount of checklist-y side content and mandatory minigames made the whole thing feel pretty bloated to me.
Even though Revelation is doubling down on the amount of content, I'm hopeful that the way it's presented this time will feel more manageable. You can skydive down from the highwind and land seemingly wherever you want when revisiting
an old region, which does grant an extra sense of freedom and verticality to exploration. This also means you can really zero in on what you want to accomplish by parachuting to a specific spot I felt like the whole world was mine to explore and I excited to dive deeper into revisiting more regions once I not on a strict timer Fun fact about parachuting down from the high wind by the way
Hamaguchi told me how the mechanic came to be, saying in the original, the high wind could land anywhere on the world now, but in this fully realized, high-fidelity open world, that wasn't really a legitimate option. So, they turned to an unlikely inspiration, Fortnite.
Hamaguchi told me, quote, So that's why we had this parachuting idea. And when you look at other games, specifically like Fortnite, it did seem that players, modern audiences, were pretty familiar or welcome to this idea
of characters flying down the air using parachutes. So I thought it would be a fun way to also introduce a seamless transition from the air to the ground. There are exceptions to landing wherever you want in a given region,
which I found when I went to Wutai for the first time. Welcome, everyone, to the land of Wutai! Yuffie's home is fully realized in Revelation, and the main town is gorgeous, with tons of tall buildings that are a perfect showcase for one of my favorite additions, the grapple gun.
I love a good grapple, the double clock shots in Zelda Twilight Princess, the grapple shot in Halo Infinite, and while Revelations is limited to grappling on specific points highlighted by the UI,
it still made getting around this dense town a lot more fun. I even entered into a grapple gun race, where Yuppie had to prove her worth by climbing to the town's highest point in a limited amount of time. The road to Wutai is also where I spent the most time with Revelations Revamped Combat.
It's very similar to Rebirth. Combat director Taruti Endo told me he felt the team perfected the combat in the second entry, so the third was all about polish and increasing player freedom. The way that takes shape is through the new FIT system, which lets you assign one of four classes to each party member.
I'll be honest though, I didn't spend much time with this, because I was too busy playing as newcomer Vincent Valentine who is probably my favorite character to fight as in this series Vincent unique hook is his ability to transform into the galleon beast form at will He turns into a hulking monster with deadly claws and he absolutely rips through enemies in this form while his combat in human form is centered
around ranged attacks. There's no limit to how often you can swap back and forth between these forms, it's only balanced by the fact that staying in galleon beast form for too long can reduce Vincent's max HP, but I really didn't mind. I honestly have a hard time seeing
myself wanting to switch away from Vincent in favor of other party members. He's just that fun to fight with. That said, Revelation again made me appreciate how large the party of characters is this early in the game. Adhering to that Axe-free structure I talked about
earlier, Chapter 4 gave me access to six different characters, each with their own playstyle, and Cloud and Tifa aren't even in the party at this point for story reasons. If you know, you know. It feels highly flexible right out of the gate, and I really like that out of
a meaty RPG. In two hours, I saw a little bit of flying, explored small areas, grappled around the new ones, and discovered my favorite character to fight as. It was a lot, and no doubt just a taste of what Revelation has to
offer. My only hope is that tackling all of the content feels as open and free as it did in this specific slice of the game. If Revelation can maintain that sense of player choice, I think it will be a really strong ending
to this trilogy. For more, check out Michael Hyam's first preview of Final Fantasy VII Revelation. And check out my full interview with Naoki Hamaguchi on IGN.com.
And for everything else, thanks for sticking with us at IGN.
Thank you.