Despite its name, Final Fantasy VII Remake isn’t just going to be a remaster of the original. Producer Yoshinori Kitase said during a closed-door presentation at E3, “Our goal here is to remake this genre-defining RPG for a new audience, for a new era, and not just to make a straight one-to-one copy or a remaster.” So, this first game focuses on Midgar, which is a dark, steampunk-inspired city that’s dominated by the evil corporation Shinra. The first game focuses here because Kitase said, “it really is the most iconic location in Final Fantasy VII’s world.” The players still control Cloud and a group of mercenaries known as Avalanche to try and put a stop to Shinra’s evil ways.
Midgar is much bigger in this remake with the game encompassing two Blu-ray discs’ worth of content. According to The Verge’s Megan Farokhmanesh hands-on time with the game, the remake is like recent Final Fantasy games with players swapping between party members to do attacks in real time. There’s even a strategic element where players can slow down time to use magic spells or launch limit break attacks. Basically, you want to stagger the enemies while dealing tons of damage. Final Fantasy VII Remake is set to launch next March, but work on the second game is already in the works. It isn’t known yet how many games will be released.