Crisis Core Final Fantasy 7 Remake: everything we know

The sequel to Final Fantasy 7 Remake that we know now is called Final Fantasy 7 rebirth, is still at least a year away. The long-awaited game will be coming to PlayStation 5 next winter. What should Final Fantasy fanatics do until then? Meet Zack Fair in Crisis Core Final Fantasy 7 Reunion.

Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7 was a hit on the PSP in 2007 and after years of fan clamor for modern consoles, it’s relaunched as Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7 Reunion. It’s more than just an opportunity to play a 15-year-old classic, as longtime Final Fantasy producer Yoshinori Kitase has said, it’s also part of the Final Fantasy 7 Remake project. In other words, Crisis Core’s story is essential for the next two remake games.

Here’s what you need to know about the upcoming game.

What is the release date of Crisis Core Final Fantasy 7 Reunion?

Crisis Core Final Fantasy 7 Reunion is coming to PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch and Windows on December 13, Square Enix announced on Tuesday.

Is it a pure remake?

Yes. Final Fantasy 7 Remake, not true to its name, ended in a way that differed from the original PlayStation title. In fact, the whole point of FF7R’s ending was to signal what will happen in the following two games, which will be different from what happened in the OG version. However, speaking to GameSpot, Crisis Core developers confirmed that no story elements from the PSP game would be changed.

“The story of Crisis Core Reunion will actually be a very faithful retelling of the original story, so there will be no additional story content,” said Mariko Sato, one of the game’s producers.

But the development team does more than make Crisis Core shine. All dialogue will be voiced over, and there will be gameplay and combat improvements – probably a good thing considering the age of the game.

Why is a Crisis Core remake a big deal?

There are three reasons why you should be interested in Crisis Core Final Fantasy 7 Reunion. First things first: it’s a great game, especially if you’re a fan of FF7. It’s a lengthy RPG that takes players through the cities and regions they first experienced when Cloud was just a handful of purple and yellow polygons. It brings depth to characters who were on the periphery of Final Fantasy 7 and depicts a world before a certain soldier became a planet-killing maniac.

Second, Square Enix has been unusually reluctant to bring the game to new consoles. Though the company has ported PS2-era games like Final Fantasy X and Kingdom Hearts to every console imaginable, Crisis Core has yet to get some sort of remaster treatment. That’s unusual, because it’s not like it’s not popular: over 2 million copies of the game have been sold. But until Reunion, you had to have a PSP handy to play Crisis Core.

Finally, Zack’s story seems crucial to the upcoming Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth.

Why do we need to know about Zack Fair?

This section contains spoilers for Final Fantasy 7, Remake, and Crisis Core.

In 1997’s Final Fantasy 7, Zack Fair only appeared in flashback scenes. Anyone who has played this game knows that Zack was a mentor to Cloud and saved his life – but that he was gunned down by the Shinra militia before the events of Final Fantasy 7. That’s one of the reasons Crisis Core from 2007 is so memorable. It made you care more about Zack and his relationships with other characters, which made his inevitable fate all the more devastating.

But at the end of Final Fantasy 7 Remake, Cloud and the gang defeated the “arbiters of fate”. You can read one full explanation of what this means – but the short story states that the Final Fantasy 7 Remake trilogy is set in an alternate dimension, and the enigmatic “referee” creatures were responsible for all events taking place in that dimension, as was the case in the 1997 original. However, after they are killed, there is nothing that keeps the chronology in tact. The death of Aerith, Cloud’s amnesia, the ultimate defeat of Sephiroth: none of this is guaranteed anymore.

Perhaps most importantly, it also keeps a Zack Fair’s fate unknown. At the end of Final Fantasy 7 Remake, we see Zack recovering from the Shinra militia attack that had ended his storyline in other dimensions. At the end of Final Fantasy 7 Intergrade, a DLC pack starring Yuffie, Zack storms into the Sector 7 Church to find Aerith, a bygone flame, only to find her gone. So we know Zack is alive, although it’s not clear what dimension he’s in.