Final Fantasy 7 Revelation Is Bringing Back the Airship Dream

In the opening minutes of Final Fantasy 7 Revelation’s uncover trailer, developer Square Enix reintroduces america to the Highwind. Fans of the archetypal PlayStation crippled volition retrieve its multi-propeller majesty with fondness; this was the conveyance that unlocked implicit go-anywhere state crossed Final Fantasy 7’s satellite map. Unrestricted by rivers, oceans, oregon upland ranges, you could soar astatine precocious velocity astir the globe. And, provided determination was a harmless abstraction to land, you could research immoderate determination that caught your eye.

That landing caveat doesn’t use to Revelation’s Highwind. It doesn’t request to interaction the ground, due to the fact that it’s you who volition beryllium doing the descent this time. Almost surely inspired by the original’s late-game airborne insertion into Midgar, you tin present dive close disconnected the Highwind’s little platform and parachute down to the ground. Akin to Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (and, if we’re honest, Fortnite) Square promises that the dive is wholly seamless, taking you from the clouds down to the afloat elaborate terrain without skipping a beat.

This has nary uncertainty been a situation to design, not slightest due to the fact that it means the developers volition person had to wholly re-think however we get Knights of Round (it can’t beryllium arsenic casual arsenic conscionable dropping onto Round Island, afterall – this is the astir almighty summon successful the game!) But I’m pleased manager Naoki Hamaguchi and his squad person made it work, due to the fact that a afloat controllable airship that tin navigate done a densely detailed, full-scale unfastened satellite is thing I’ve been waiting for Final Fantasy to bash since 2001.

As immoderate semipermanent instrumentality of the bid volition know, the operation of Final Fantasy has importantly changed implicit the past quarter-century. The archetypal 9 games, spanning from the pixel creation of the NES done to the 3D landscapes of the PlayStation era, each featured an overworld; a large representation you research to observe caller locations. These maps were not true-scale successful size and were importantly little elaborate than the towns and dungeons you accessed from them, but they nevertheless provided the signifier for a sprawling, epic adventure. In galore ways, these overworlds were 1 of the seeds from which today’s unfastened satellite games grew.

Piloting the Highwind is 1 of Final Fantasy 7's large joys.

When the PlayStation 2 arrived astatine the dawn of the millennium, it brought with it a full caller procreation of graphical fidelity. No longer was Final Fantasy restricted to pre-rendered backgrounds - the full crippled could beryllium made up of profoundly elaborate 3D environments with gorgeous textures. Progress comes astatine a cost, though. Crafting an overworld that could lucifer the ocular advancements of the main locations would person been a improvement nightmare; hugely expensive, technically demanding, and incredibly punishing erstwhile it came to disc space. And truthful erstwhile Final Fantasy 10 arrived successful 2001, it did truthful without the series’ accepted overworld. The full crippled took spot wrong its level environments – a linear concatenation of towns, beaches, temples, and the backmost of a elephantine evil whale.

Nowhere is this displacement much evident than astatine the helm of the Fahrenheit, Final Fantasy 10’s airship. In anterior games, unlocking the airship was a infinitesimal of unparalleled excitement. Each entry’s cloud-surfer grants you implicit freedom, permitting you to thunder crossed the overworld astatine a gait you could lone imagination of successful the game’s opening act. But successful Final Fantasy 10, the Fahrenheit is thing much than a fancy accelerated question menu. A database of destinations dressed for the Met Gala. A diamond-encrusted spreadsheet of co-ordinates.

Final Fantasy 10's airship was fundamentally Google Maps for Spira.

I cannot statesman to explicate however deflated 12 year-old maine was erstwhile I yet took bid of the Fahrenheit. I had fixated implicit the PS1 era’s airships, peculiarly the militarised abstraction Ferrari that was Final Fantasy 8’s Ragnarok. For me, getting the airship had go the definitive Final Fantasy moment, a gaming acquisition dissimilar immoderate other. And successful Final Fantasy 10 – the archetypal crippled I had obsessively followed the improvement of crossed aggregate issues of Official PlayStation Magazine, dreaming of each the things a next-gen FF could beryllium – this infinitesimal had been reduced to a UI constituent that could teleport maine betwixt prevention points. It whitethorn beryllium a looker, with its gilded halo and pearlescant hue, but the Fahrenheit has been a changeless reminder of however large advancement demands large sacrifice.

The mainline bid has ne'er revisited the thought of the overworld, and frankincense the airship imagination faded. While locations became much expansive, specified arsenic Final Fantasy 12’s sprawling deserts and 13’s late-game Gran Pulse region, these games followed FF10’s lead. Level environments fed straight into each other, forgoing the request for a satellite map. The games became much linear, overmuch to Final Fantasy 13’s detriment successful particular.

But arsenic gaming exertion advanced, the worlds of Final Fantasy did yet statesman to lucifer the overworlds of its past. The powerfulness of the PlayStation 4 unlocked Final Fantasy 15’s Eos, an unfastened satellite of rolling verdant hills that seemingly stretched connected without end. But protagonist Noctis navigated done it successful a marque caller way: via car, on pre-determined roads. If you wanted to trek disconnected the beaten path, you’d request to hoof it on-foot oregon hop connected a Chocobo (at slightest until a escaped update added an off-road mentation of the Regalia car, six months later.) Noctics’ wheels could beryllium upgraded to fly, but this was a post-game bonus, alternatively than a transformative infinitesimal successful the main story.

But adjacent the flying Regalia Type-F was amended than Final Fantasy 16’s bait-and-switch. Built for the PS5, the satellite of Valisthea whitethorn person technically been a bid of interconnected zones alternatively than FF15's much genuine effort astatine an unfastened world, but its scope was yet approaching the standard depicted by those old-fashioned overworlds – a bid of kingdoms with fields, forests, deserts, towns, and hideaways. And erstwhile technologist Mid Telamon tasks you with aiding her rebuild an airship successful the story’s last act, it truly does look that Final Fantasy is astir to revisit its glory days of airborne freedom. Alas, the quest goes perfectly obscurity adjacent that direction. If anything, your options successful FF16 are much constricted than those of its predecessor – each you person present are your ain legs oregon those of a Chocobo.

Where we droppin', team?

That could ne'er beryllium the lawsuit for Final Fantasy 7’s remake trilogy, though. The overworld is excessively important a portion of the cloth of its campaign. And truthful portion the linear, Midgar-set archetypal enactment granted Square Enix immoderate other clip to enactment it out, Hamaguchi and his squad yet had to find a solution to the Highwind occupation successful the trilogy’s last chapter.

The groundwork was laid successful the 2nd game, 2024’s Rebirth, which pushed Final Fantasy the furthest it's ever been into the modern time knowing of an unfastened satellite game. While technically made up of hubs bridged by linear environments, each hub has the classical hallmarks of a post-Assassin’s Creed unfastened world; towers that uncover the galore icons dotted crossed the map, a multitude of antithetic enactment types, and a agelong database of broadside quests and bounties to implicit successful the pursuit of 100%-ing each area.

Revelation looks acceptable to instrumentality the adjacent step: turning that operation of hubs into a existent unfastened world. Quite however it volition bash this remains to beryllium seen, arsenic presumably it needs to unify the existing regions we explored done Rebirth – the likes of Junon, Corel, and Cosmo Canyon – with the galore caller areas its communicative volition instrumentality america to, specified arsenic Wutai and the Mideel Archipelago. Any gaps betwixt the existing hubs volition request patching up, and past there’s the question of Midgar itself. Square needs to find a spot for the Mako-powered metropolis successful each of this. But there’s nary question that, erstwhile each brought together, it volition make Final Fantasy's “most expansive unfastened satellite yet,” arsenic the trailer proclaims.

And precocious supra that satellite volition beryllium the Highwind – nary uncertainty sailing done the skies to an updated mentation of Nobuo Uematsu’s immortal theme. And down beneath volition beryllium not an overworld, but a genuine unfastened world. And for the archetypal clip successful a 4th century, we’ll yet beryllium capable to alert a Final Fantasy airship wherever we want.

Matt Purslow is IGN's Executive Editor of Features.