Final Fantasy VII Revelation Seems Freaking Huge

If you’ve never been to gamescom, believe me when I say that the entire week ends up a total blur. The show is so insanely massive, and even if you’re someone that’s trying to maximize your time in Cologne, there still aren’t enough hours in the day to stop and try everything that teams have on offer on the floor. That said, of course I made sure to take the time go hands-on with Final Fantasy VII Revelation at the Square Enix booth, because… well, it’s Final Fantasy VII Revelation.

In an hour-long timeslot with the game, I was able to hear from the team about some new features in the conclusion to the FFVII Remake Trilogy, but honestly, all I wanted to do was pick up my controller and dive into as much of 2027’s biggest scheduled video game release so far as I could. When all was said and done, I got to play probably around 45 minutes of Square’s upcoming juggernaut.

And here’s where I have to tell you: 45 minutes was not even close to enough. I mean that in mostly good ways that we’ll get into below, but also in the sense of the fact that Revelation is truly a behemoth, and in 45 minutes, I honestly feel like I hardly accomplished anything. Either way, however, we have a lot to discuss, a vast amount of which will surely be very exciting for series fans dying to get their hands on this game.

Throwing a FIT

At the core of the Final Fantasy VII Revelation demo experience, the two things that were really driven home hardest to us press members in the room were the FITS system and the Highwind aircraft. Let’s start with FITS, which, for all intents and purposes, is Revelation’s take on a traditional JRPG Job System.

While I still don’t know just how many FITS will be in the full game, it’s been reported that we won’t have to work too hard to unlock all of them. They’ll all be available to us in the early hours of Revelation, which is a very intentional choice to give players all the options possible for playstyle customization essentially right off the bat. A different FIT can be delegated to each party member, and each one also comes with a specific character outfit that reflects the role itself.

For example, in my demo, Barret was given a more offensive, tanky FIT, and this was reflected in him wearing what looked like a variation of almost medieval-looking knight’s armor. But perhaps you don’t like the look of a certain FIT, but still want a party member to reflect that class-type in battle. Luckily, Revelation allows you to choose any FIT outfit you prefer for any character, yet still have their moveset and role reflect the “job” you want to assign them.

You also have the freedom to choose which party member you want to control and act as team lead, and this can be switched on a whim whenever you please in the menu. Maybe you want to run around an area as Vincent, but it feels more thematically appropriate to change to Yuffie once you get on the ground in her homeland of Wutai. Revelation allows you to do this exact thing.

The other huge thing in FFVII this time around is the Highwind, your airship captained by Cid that serves as your sort of hub/homebase in Revelation. The ship itself is massive on the inside, though I opted personally more for in-world exploration during my demo than scouring every room of the ship to see what it had to offer. The first impression, however, was that the Highwind is very impressive, and we’ll likely have a ton to do inside it.

You’ll pilot the Highwind around the map, which allows you to reach whatever POI/objective you’re looking for in no time before skydiving/parachuting/landing on your Chocobo on the surface and heading off on your merry way. It’s a decidedly cool way to get around, even if the skydiving/parachuting specifically is still feeling quite stiff and awkward to me at this stage of development, which was one of my big things I’m hoping gets tweaked/improved after going hands-on.

Living in a Materia World

Now comes the hard part of this hands-on preview discussion for me, because when I think back to my play session and what I want to tell you about it, I’m honestly not even sure how to adequately do so. This is a bit odd, because I’ve previewed a lot of games prior, and have never felt this sort of pseudo-writer’s block before.

The reason for this is that I’m still not sure I really did anything substantial, nor accomplished anything of particular note in my 45 minutes with the game. Revelation is so freaking massive feeling, with so many map markers and things to track down and do, that I genuinely feel like I tried to see everything I could in such a short window and walked away feeling like nothing had really happened.

Of course, this isn’t technically true. I flew around several areas of the map, got location descriptions from a crew member on the Highwind to describe what I was flying over, skydove down to the surface, fought (and died to) a giant monster that was far too high level for me, kicked off a few quests, watched many cutscenes, snowboarded at the Gold Saucer, tried a round of the Queen’s Blood card game, and progressed the very first bit of questwork in Yuffie’s homeland of Wutai.

This scattershot demo approach wasn’t for Square’s lack of effort in trying to guide me properly through the demo. In fact, we were given packets of information to aid in our play session which gave us suggestions for areas/activities they thought we should try out before our time was up. And while this was helpful for sure, there simply was not enough time for me to feel like I was seeing anything through in any sort of substantial, meaningful way without just picking one thing to hone-in on while missing so many other activities.

All of this to say, going hands-on with Revelation was extremely cool for the novelty factor, but I still feel like I sit with the majority of you that haven’t played it yet, wondering how everything is really going to feel and unfold in the final game proper. What is abundantly clear is that Revelation is going to have a ton to do, and it’s going to be one of those gaming experiences where you can sit down, pick up the controller, and then notice half your day has passed before you’ve even felt like you’ve gotten started.

This may sound negative, and I actually do not mean it to be at all; at least, not for everyone. One of my personal examples of this exact type of feeling in a game is Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, one of my top games of 2025, and also one so massive and densely packed with objectives, side activities, and various other distractions that it quite often made me feel like I spent five hours wandering around and doing random things that didn’t always feel like anything substantial, but still was an amazing way for me to pass the time, getting fully lost and immersed in a game world I loved and wanted to see as much of as I possibly could.

What to Mako of It All

This is where you’re going to know if Final Fantasy VII Revelation is for you or not. Of course, if you’re a dedicated fan already invested in seeing this story through and have had a great time so far, naturally, you’re going to eat Revelation up. If you’re someone, however, that perhaps felt like Rebirth was getting a little long in the tooth, possibly even bloated, well… I don’t feel like Revelation is going to solve that issue for you.

But what I do know is that for the likely millions of players ready to fully dive in and start chunking away at everything Revelation has to offer, you’re in for a smorgasbord of story, content, exploration, and a vast array of varied and diverse gameplay moments that will keep you happy and occupied for a long, long time. On a personal level, I can see a scenario where it all ultimately feels overwhelming to me with so, so much to seemingly do in the game. I’m not usually a huge open-world gamer, and Revelation is capital “O” open.

On the other hand, like I mentioned with KCD2, there is still a special type of game with this much packed-in content where, if I’m connecting with the world, characters, and story, I can giddily sink dozens of hours into a title like this, happy to simply exist within the universe for as long as I possibly can. Final Fantasy VII Revelation absolutely feels like it has the potential to be one of those rare expectations for my personal tastes, and if I walked away feeling like this, I have no doubt that the vast majority of fans of the VII reboot series will end up obsessed with Revelation.

Final Fantasy VII Revelation is coming out next year on April 7, 2027. It will be available on PS5, XBOX, Switch 2, and PC. We’ll be sure to continue covering this game every step of the way from here until launch, and I’m now joining the army of you out there eagerly waiting to see the final version of Revelation when it’s ready for the world.

Released

April 8, 2027

Developer(s)

Square Enix

Publisher(s)

Square Enix

Prequel(s)

Final Fantasy VII Remake, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth