When was the Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth release date? Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is yet another retelling of FF7, but this time on an enormous scale. By taking the characters and story beats fans love, and throwing them into a stunning, content-packed open world, it’s been lauded as one of the best Final Fantasy games ever made.
With glowing reviews, massive sales numbers, and lots of praise from Final Fantasy series veterans, FF7 Rebirth has certainly delivered. Whether you’ve played past iterations of FF7 – or any Final Fantasy games, for that matter – Rebirth has massive and broad appeal. It’s one of the best RPG games of the 2020s for sure, and one of the best PS5 games of the whole generation, regardless of genre. But when did it drop, and what else do you need to know if you’re thinking of jumping in?
Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth release date
The Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth release date was Thursday, February 29, 2024. It launched as a PS5 exclusive.
The game was initially meant to release towards the end of 2023, but was delayed by a few months to ensure it met Square Enix’s high quality bar. While there was disappointment at the time, the delay was certainly the right decision – FF7 Rebirth launched with immediate critical acclaim.
Rebirth is the second game in a trilogy of FF7 remakes. The first, simply titled Final Fantasy 7 Remake, came out in 2020, so fans had to wait around four years between the first two entries. It’s unclear at the moment if there’ll be a similar wait time for the third and final entry in the trilogy.
Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth story
Let us give you a fair warning before we get into it, the following section has spoilers for the original game, Final Fantasy 7 Remake, Intermission, and potentially Rebirth, so read on with caution.
Before we look forward, we need to look back to where things left off. Final Fantasy 7 Remake ends in a pretty intense fashion. Cloud and the gang defeat the Harbingers, Cloud has a one-on-one fight with not-actually-Sephiroth in not-actually-space in a manner that matches the ending of the original Final Fantasy 7, Rufus has become president, Hojo has descended further into madness, Zack, who you may remember dying in Crisis Core is… alive? Biggs, who you may remember dying in the original, is alive?!
Then there’s the Final Fantasy 7 Remake Intermission ending. Yuffie leaves Midgar on a chocobo after losing Sonon in a fight with Weiss (remember him from Dirge of Cerberus? Of course you don’t, no one played that game). Then, Cloud and his pals hitch a ride with Chocobo Billy to a peaceful little town called Kalm, and Zack opens the door to Aerith’s church in the slums to a room full of crying people.
We don’t blame you if that overload of information has left you a little confused, and Rebirth only muddies the waters further by making some significant changes to the story – especially towards the end. We won’t go over those here in the interest of spoilers, but the twists this story takes will stun both newcomers and FF7 veterans alike.
Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth gameplay
The big gameplay advancement made in FF7 Rebirth compared to Remake is that it is a much more open world, with real-time combat encounters and exploration.
The number of playable characters has also increased – there are seven characters that can become full-blown party members, and you can also control two other characters (Zack and Sephiroth) for specific sections of the game. Combat-wise, Rebirth continues on with the Active Time Battle system introduced in Remake that lets you switch between party members in the heat of battle.
While there is fast-paced, hack-and-slash melee combat, this serves more as a way to charge up ATB points and build up enemies’ stagger bars, and then when the time is right, unleashing massive attacks. Materia also helps add elemental attacks to your arsenal, and having the right Materia equipped can help you exploit certain bosses’ weaknesses.
As mentioned, Rebirth leans more towards being a proper open-world game, and as a result there are lots of collectibles to hunt for while travelling from place to place. Speaking of travelling, you can now ride chocobos to help you cover those long distances.
Alongside the main action, FF7 Rebirth is also stuffed with minigames. From Queen’s Blood – an addictive card game that is good enough to be its own standalone game, if we’re honest – to Chocobo Racing, there’s a lot to occupy you if you need a break from the main action.
That covers everything we know about Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, including its release date. If you’re looking for must-play games to add to your library, make sure you’re consulting our best games guide for those on PlayStation and Xbox consoles.