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Nintendo's Direct for Switch 2 ran for about an hour, ending just a few minutes ago. This Direct was previously assumed to be mostly about first-party games, particularly those available near the launch window; under that assumption, the number of games presented by third parties was pretty significant.

For Square Enix fans, two titles in particular would be of interest, but neither are new. Bravely Default Flying Fairy was presented as a launch title for Switch 2 on the release date of June 5, 2025; this, the first game of the series, released for the 3DS in 2012. The remaster for Switch 2 will upscale the game and adjust the UI to suit, as well as add some new minigames. The online features from the original have been ported in as well.

Additionally, Squenix confirmed the long-standing rumor that Final Fantasy VII Remake would arrive on the Switch 2. This was not presented as a launch title, as far as I'm aware - the stream had some technical difficulties right before the announcement and I have not yet seen the complete video from that portion, just the audio. The version to be released will be the Intergrade version released for PlayStation 5 and PC, meaning it will include the additional Yuffie content. This of course implies that Rebirth may eventually come to Switch 2 as well, but that was not addressed in today's Direct.

Unfortunately, no announcements for anything Final Fantasy IX today, as many were hoping for - but there's still a few months before we hit that 25th anniversary.

The Game Awards 2024 have been up and running for under an hour as this is written, but a Square Enix announcement happened early on. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, always expected for a Windows release, got a date that is coming very soon: January 23, 2025.

The game will be released on both Steam and in the Epic Games Store on that day, and preorders are meant to start in the next few hours. Squenix are advertising on socials that preorders will have a discount of "up to 30%" so if you have a pretty strong gaming rig and no Playstation 5, it's your time.

Naturally, I had important family engagements last night just in time for the Final Fantasy VII Rebirth State of Play showcase from Sony, so after catching only the trailer last night I had to get up a little early to catch up. So, here's a quick recap for all of you as well, if you missed it or only saw the "short" trailer so far. Spoilers abound if you're looking to go into the game completely tabula rasa, so this post will simply end with the State of Play video and the rest will follow in thread.

Sony's recently-announced State of Play just wrapped up a few minutes ago, with Square Enix serving as the penultimate spectacle. After a brief bit of Foamstars (open beta coming in two weeks, release early 2024 if you're here for that news), the stream jumped straight into Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. Before I break down the trailer, though, you can get the release date: Leap Day 2024. That's a bit later than I'd hoped, but at least it gives me more time to catch up on games before it releases.

Based on these three minutes, there is going to be a lot packed into this game, and this is going to be completely spoilery if you haven't gotten around to playing Remake and Intermission. The trailer starts with Zack carrying Cloud through a wrecked Midgar, showing yet again that there are some sort of timeline or universe shenanigans at play. It then cuts straight to Rufus ordering the Junon cannon to fire, and some brief snippets of combat, including some with Red XIII in the primary battle party. Cait Sith returns from his brief cameo in the prior game, complete with accent and giant Moogle, and the first confirmation that he will indeed be available for combat too.

The buggy appears, as well as some of our favorite colors of chocobo; REUNION gets some focus, as well as Midgardsormr and the Bottomswell boss under Junon. Yuffie shows off a partner technique with Barret, and Aerith does one with Cait Sith, and then we get a little bit of Cloud and Sephiroth fighting... as teammates. A couple quick cuts show us new summons, namely Alexander and Odin, and then we get a longer sequence of Gold Saucer, with everyone's favorite minigames.

We then get another brief shot of Zack, this time dropping off the still-unconscious Cloud with, of all people, apparently Kyrie? The strange shenanigans continue anon. Finally, a couple more big reveals - Emerald Weapon, Vincent, and at last, Sephiroth speaking of REUNION... "When worlds merge."

Sorry if this sounds a little breathless, but frankly, it is a bit. There was a lot packed into three short minutes, a lot more than I expected to see today. And preorders are open now.

After the mild disappointment of the Sony Showcase, in which we got no Final Fantasy VII, the Summer Game Fest stream that just ended gave us a little bit more of what we're looking for: a brand-new trailer for Final Fantasy VII Rebirth.

This had been expected for the last week or so, when the official Twitter accounts in both Japanese and English started posting semi-cryptic updates about the progress of the game, and users noticed that they started exactly seven days before Keighley's SGF. Bad news out of the way, first - the trailer locks in a mostly-assumed bit of news, that the game is delayed now until "Early 2024." That same title card has some surprising news, too - the game is shipping on two discs. This obviously means that it's going to be a larger game than the first one, which shipped on a single disc for Playstation 5 even including Yuffie's Intermission. I'm going to do something odd for CoN news here and put my impressions of the trailer in a separate thread so they can be more easily avoided for users who want no chance of spoilers. For this post, I'll just suffice to say that my kid got very excited very quickly.

The other Final Fantasy VII game that's on the way, Ever Crisis, also got a new trailer and updated release information. In this case, the new information is that players can pre-register for the game now; additionally, players on Android devices can sign up to get into a closed beta starting today and running until just about the end of June. It seems like this game should make it to Switch, eventually, but unfortunately that was not part of today's announcment.The way I see it, if you're not completely sold on Final Fantasy XVI yet, there is at least a lot of good Final Fantasy VII coming... but probably not soon enough.

A new prequel novel set in the Final Fantasy VII universe released in English earlier this week, entitled "Final Fantasy VII Remake: Traces of Two Pasts." The novel, written by Kazushige Nojima (the primary scenario writer behind both the game's original PS1 release as well as 2020's Remake) and translated to English by Stephen Kohler (whose other Square Enix-related translations include Final Fantasy XV: The Dawn of the Future and NieR:Automata - YoRHa Boys), explores the childhoods of characters Tifa Lockhart and Aerith Gainsborough, with roughly half of the book devoted to each character's backstory.

If you're a big fan of FF7's leading ladies, the novel answers numerous questions and expands upon the characters' origins, such as Tifa's introduction to Zangan and how Aerith came to be in Elmyra's care. And for the FF7 dorks who always wondered about that heretofore unnamed cat that shows up with Tifa in the Japan-exclusive Before Crisis flip-phone mobile game... Well, I'm happy to report that you're in luck, too! Find out all about Tifa's cat. And its cat antics. And how Tifa is most definitely a cat person.

Published by Square Enix Books, the hardcover version of the novel retails for $24.99 and the ebook edition for $14.99 (available on Amazon, Apple Books, Google Play, Kobo, and more).

The AmaCoN link is of course right here, and as of the time of this post, it's 10% off. I've already ordered a copy for my daughter's birthday, though there's a good chance I sneak in reading it before that myself.

Source: Square Enix Books/Penguin Random House