Preview: Playing Final Fantasy VII: Revelation On PS5 Has Me Worried For The Switch 2 Port
At Gamescom 2026, hands-on previews of Final Fantasy VII Revelation revealed a sprawling, high-flying conclusion—and mounting anxiety over bloat.
Questions people are asking
When is Final Fantasy VII Revelation scheduled for release?
The game is slated to launch in April.
What is the estimated completion time for Final Fantasy VII Revelation?
Director Naoki Hamaguchi states a standard golden-path playthrough takes about 35 hours, while completionist runs can exceed 100 hours.
Which characters are featured in the Chapter 4 demo slice?
The demo centers on Yuffie, Barret, Cait Sith, and Vincent aboard the Highwind airship, while Cloud and Tifa remain temporarily separated.
What happened
Square Enix is hurtling toward the finish line of its ambitious remake trilogy. At Gamescom 2026, hands-on previews of Final Fantasy VII Revelation offered a glimpse at Chapter 4 of the epic, dropping players aboard Cid’s iconic Highwind airship to survey a world that has grown considerably since Rebirth. With Cloud and an unwell Tifa separated from the party, characters like Yuffie, Barret, Cait Sith, and Vincent chart their course across a planet-level open environment. For game director Naoki Hamaguchi, who spent a full year ideating Revelation while Rebirth was wrapping up, scaling up verticality and traversal—from flying chocobos to parachuting—represents the ultimate realization of his open-world vision.
Yet that expansive scale has immediately reignited old debates about pacing and design. Previewers noted that the game's DNA remains deeply tied to overwhelming side content, constant tutorial prompts, and intrusive UI notifications. Critics at Eurogamer and Game Informer reported spending substantial portions of their limited demo time dismissing full-screen pop-ups, managing returning characters like Chadley, and swatting away interruptions from the Monster Assessment Instrument, or MAI. While players who relish grinding superbosses, collecting cards, and diving into expanded minigames like Queen’s Blood—complete with a new trump card mechanic and a workers' uprising at the Golden Saucer—will find plenty to love, those who found Rebirth overstuffed may struggle with Revelation's relentless density.
Beneath the surface-level complaints about demo pacing, deeper questions linger regarding how Square Enix will balance this maximalist approach with narrative focus. The sheer breadth of the final chapter—featuring flooded Gongaga regions, Junon bearing the brunt of Weapons' attacks, and an expanded Wutai—pushes technical and design limits. These logistical hurdles have even sparked industry speculation about how future or portable hardware, such as rumored Switch 2 ports, will ever handle a world of this magnitude.
Ultimately, Revelation embodies the high-stakes gamble of letting a creative team radically reinvent a beloved classic. Hamaguchi remains confident that the trilogy's conclusion delivers a feeling no other open world can match, anchoring its vast playground in a deeper exploration of its iconic cast and an intricate time-boggling mystery featuring Zack. Whether the finished product successfully weaves its massive web of minigames, airship traversal, and character arcs into a cohesive emotional crescendo will depend entirely on how effectively Square Enix tunes the volume of its own ambitions before April's launch.
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Sources (5)
- 'Final Fantasy 7 Revelation' Interview: Hands-On Preview deadline.com · 4h ago
- If you thought Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth was bloated, you're not going to like Revelation Eurogamer.net · 4h ago
- Final Fantasy VII Revelation Director Explains Why the Physical Disc Version Requires a Download to Play IGN · 4h ago
- Final Fantasy VII Revelation Preview: Excitement For The Finale, Despite A Mediocre Demo gameinformer.com · 4h ago
- Preview: Playing Final Fantasy VII: Revelation On PS5 Has Me Worried For The Switch 2 Port Nintendo Life · 4h ago
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