A new Good Smile Company release.
Last month, Good Smile Company teased new figma including a Pop Up Parade version of Kirby car, based on a transformation in Kirby and the Forgotten Land. Pre-orders for this item will set you back USD $25.99 (or the regional equivalent).
It’s estimated to ship in Q4 2024 and even zooms about when you pull it back. Here’s a bit of PR:
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Star Wars Outlaws is billed as the franchise’s first-ever open-world game. From the makers of The Division and Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, Outlaws tells a scoundrel story that explores the depths of Star Wars’ underworld between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.
In anticipation of Ubisoft’s big Star Wars game, we’ve put together this breakdown of everything you need to know about Star Wars Outlaws.
Jump to:
Ubisoft has released two official trailers for Star Wars Outlaws. The most substantial of which is a 10-minute gameplay trailer revealed last June. Check it out below:
Star Wars Outlaws has an official release window of 2024. It will be released sometime between April and December 2024, according to Ubisoft’s most recent earnings report.
Star Wars Outlaws will be released on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC (via Ubisoft Connect). Ubisoft has not announced a price for Outlaws, though $70 is a safe assumption considering its scope and Ubisoft’s pricing for recent AAA games like Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora.
Star Wars Outlaws tells the story of Kay Vess and her axolotl-like companion Nix attempting “one of the greatest heists the Outer Rim has ever seen.” It’s a scoundrel story that aims to emulate the adventures of Han Solo or Jack Sparrow while being “a little bit more relatable,” according to creative director Julian Gerighty. “More of a rookie, a petty thief, who ends up in a situation that’s much bigger than they ever expected,” he said.
Here’s the official synopsis from Disney and Ubisoft:
“Experience the first-ever open-world Star Wars game, set between the events of The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Explore distinct planets across the galaxy, both iconic and new. Risk it all as Kay Vess, an emerging scoundrel seeking freedom and the means to start a new life, along with her companion Nix. Fight, steal, and outwit your way through the galaxy’s crime syndicates as you join the galaxy’s most wanted.
“If you’re willing to take the risk, the galaxy is full of opportunity.”
The decision was made to set Outlaws between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi (the second and third films in the original trilogy) because it’s a time when “the underworld is thriving.” Gerighty explained: “When we were starting off the discussions with Lucasfilm, it was very clear that the one-year period between Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, that’s where the Rebels aren’t part of the picture. The Empire’s taking more and more control, but the syndicates, they’re taking more power, they’re exploiting all of these weaknesses. So it really is a moment where the underworld is thriving and there’s no better situation for an established or a rookie scoundrel to cut their teeth than this particular moment.”
Kay Vess is voiced by Humberly González (Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, Ginny & Georgia). Her alien companion Nix is voiced by Dee Bradley Baker (Star Wars: The Bad Batch, American Dad). The full cast has not been revealed, though we know Outlaws will include characters both new and old. Among the old is Jabba the Hutt, who Massive confirmed will assign Kay missions from his palace on Tatooine. Among the new is the battle droid ND-5 (voiced by Jay Rincon), who fought in the Clone Wars before taking up a life in the underworld.
Star Wars Outlaws’ open world is spread across multiple “handcrafted” planets of “manageable” sizes. The planets (final number TBA) “could be [equivalent to] two to three zones” in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, according to Gerighty. As the director noted, this is a “crude analogy” as the regions of Odyssey’s Greece range in size, though it should be taken to mean the planets will not be near-endless areas filled with procedurally generated content.
The planets in Outlaws will adhere to Lucasfilm’s “80/20” rule of location design: 80% familiar, 20% alien or fantastical. Gerighty explained how Massive designed its version of Tatooine around this philosophy: “We start off with a biome, in this case, southeast African biomes as an inspiration, and then you put a twist on it to make it feel a little bit alien. If you think of the first shots, maybe not the first shots, but the first the shots of Tatooine. Beautiful, recognizable architecture, but two suns. For us, it’s having this huge mountain, and carved into it into the amberine of the mountain, the crystalline substance is a city, and these outcroppings of orange, very reflective material. That’s what brings the really alien nature to it. Familiar but fresh.”
Despite Massive’s dose of originality, Tatooine in Outlaws will be informed by the rich history of Star Wars films. “If you close your eyes and give people a choice to go anywhere in Tatooine?” Gerighty said. “Mos Eisley. And specifically one watering hole in Mos Eisley. The opportunity is that you can see all the nooks and crannies. This concept of virtual tourism is important to us. If you’ve ever wondered the distances from the moisture farms to the cantina? We have an experience for you.”
Another location Massive has detailed is the previously unexplored moon Toshara. Inspired by East African savannas, Toshara is home to “lots of wide, open plains” — a perfect playground for Kay’s speeder. It’s described as a “hive of scum and villainy” where players can explore the scoundrel lifestyle.
Other locations glimpsed in trailers include Kijimi, home to a hive-mind syndicate based on the Medlitto species called the Ashiga Clan; the humid jungle planet of Akiva; and Cantonica, home to the infamous casino city Canto Bight.
While Ubisoft has not revealed how long it’ll take to complete Star Wars Outlaws, two key developers have commented on their desire to avoid making it “too big” — a common criticism for recent Ubisoft open-world games like Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. “Too big,” according to Gerighty and narrative director Navid Khavari, “is a game that people don’t manage to play, enjoy, and finish.”
Gerighty added: “Our objective is to really get people into a very dense, rich adventure, open world adventure that they can explore at their own rhythm. So it is absolutely not a 200- or 300-hour epic unfinishable RPG. This is a very focused action-adventure RPG that will take people on a ride and is very manageable.”
Star Wars Outlaws is played from a third-person perspective. On the ground, players can expect hand-to-hand combat, gunplay, and stealth sequences. While aboard your ship, The Trailblazer, Outlaws provides opportunities for intimate dogfights with TIE fighters and larger-scale battles against massive vessels. More on space combat below.
As for your companion, Nix appears able to distract enemies, retrieve weapons, press buttons/pull switches, and attack guards by pressing RB/R1 and highlighting the desired action.
The open world of Star Wars Outlaws will be traversed on foot, atop your speeder, and aboard your ship. One of the most impressive things we’ve seen from Outlaws is the seamless nature in which you’ll be able to move across these three modes of traversal; Kay can go from foot to speeder to space without any cuts to black or obvious loading screens.
The planets of Outlaws can be navigated most efficiently using Kay’s speeder, which the dev team describes as “motocross in the sense of making the travel really fun, thrilling, full of tricks, speed chases, that type of thing.” As evidenced in the gameplay trailer, you’ll be able to shoot while riding using a slow-motion targeting system reminiscent of Red Dead’s Dead Eye.
There also appears to be some on-foot platforming, as we’ve seen Kay climb atop boxes and rappel down ropes using her grappling hook.
As for how Ubisoft has designed the open world to be explored, Khavari said the goal is to “make sure that the player organizes their experience according to their desires.” The team wants to avoid the Ubisoft open-world critique of maps crowded with icons that lead to repetitive activities. The goal here is to create worlds “so dense and so rich with different distractions that we won’t have to rely on so many UI indications for them,” he said.
While aboard the Trailblazer, Kay will get into dogfights with hostile spacecraft. Dogfighting is made “as accessible as possible because movement in a whole full-on 360-degree environment is quite challenging,” said Gerighty. Massive hopes to accomplish this by slowing down the pace of dogfights and providing players with a chase cam control that allows enemy ships to be chased automatically so you can focus solely on aiming your shots.
In addition to being a vessel for space exploration and deep-space combat, the Trailblazer serves as a sort of home base for Kay. While roaming the ship on foot, you’ll be able to speak with other characters and explore the mysteries of the ship’s history.
There are two important systems around player behavior in Star Wars Outlaws: Reputation and Wanted. Massive says these two systems will be at play within every location, as they designed each with consideration for the presence of the Empire and the various crime Syndicates.
The Reputation system applies to Kay’s relationships with Syndicates. If Kay fosters trust with Syndicates, she can expect better contracts, cheaper store prices, and access to new territories. Should she fall out of favor with one, she can expect to be hunted. “It’s all about playing the Syndicates off one another, making choices, dilemmas in terms of how you hand in a quest, that type of thing,” said Gerighty.
The Wanted system, meanwhile, pertains to Kay’s relationship with the Empire. The Empire will put the Wanted tag on Kay when she acts against their wishes. In one example, we see Kay refuse to pay a bribe to an Imperial officer, resulting in a high-speed chase that follows the fugitive from land to space.
Outlaws features some light RPG elements, such as an upgrade system that allows you to bolster Kay’s gear, from improvements to her speeder bike to new modules for her blaster. There will also be customization options for Kay’s speeder and spaceship.
There will be dialogue choices to make as Kay. This system was implemented to enhance the experience of role-playing as a scoundrel in the world of Star Wars, Gerighty told IGN.
Development of Star Wars Outlaws is led by Massive Entertainment, the Ubisoft-owned studio responsible for The Division and Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. Massive is supported by Ubisoft Annecy, Bucharest, Chengdu, Milan, Montpellier, Paris, Shanghai, Toronto, Redlynx, and Stockholm. It’s being developed using Massive’s in-house Snowdrop game engine.
Outlaws was announced in early 2021, signaling the end of EA’s exclusive hold on the Star Wars video game license, before being properly revealed at the 2023 Xbox Games Showcase. According to Disney’s Sean Shoptaw, the inception of Massive’s Star Wars game came during a meeting between the two companies to discuss Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora.
Key developers include game director Mathias Karlson (The Division 2), creative director Julian Gerighty (The Division 2), narrative director Navid Khavari (Far Cry 6), art and world director Benedikt Podlesniggand (The Division 2), and lead writer Nikki Foy (Far Cry 6).
Jordan covers games, shows, and movies as a freelance writer for IGN.
A long list of balance changes, too.
If you’re still duking it out in Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl 2, you’ll be pleased to hear a new update has now been released.
Update 1.7 includes the new game mode “rotation”, new stage layouts, new campaign power-ups (including the Perfect Krabby Patty), a handful of new items, bug fixes, a general update, and a lot of character balance changes.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
Vampire Survivors received yet another update this past week. The Space-54 update adds two new characters, four new weapons, a new relic, and a new bonus stage. It also introduces cross-save support between Steam and Android to the Steam public beta branch.
Starfield‘s next update will arrive in beta on March 6th, bringing another suite of quality-of-life improvements and bug fixes. Top of the list of tweaks is the ability to change player character and compansion facial expressions during photo mode, like running your family snaps through FaceApp to create the illusion everyone had fun on their holiday to the Bonneville salt flats.
Pre-orders are now live.
The 2022 horror RPG OMORI will be getting a physical collector’s edition for Switch in Summer 2024, courtesy of Fangamer.
This collector’s edition will come with a collector’s box, sheet music booklet, ephemera envelope, pinwheel kit, pressed flower bookmark, Mari’s drawing, bottle cap magnet, Hobbeez receipt, Othermart loyalty card, Kel’s comic, Capt. Spaceboy cutout, a recital ticket, a hidden item, and a piano music box.
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When it comes to licensed movie franchises entering the world of video games, very few have as storied a history as Star Wars. From hopping into an X-Wing cockpit in Rogue Squadron to making decisions that affect the fate of the galaxy in Knights of the Old Republic, George Lucas’ expansive sci-fi universe has become a creative playground for a range of talented developers over the years, and with it paved the way for some truly iconic Star Wars games.
For those looking to dive into some of these games on their Nintendo Switch, we’ve got you covered. Below, we’ve compiled every single Star Wars game available on Nintendo’s flagship console, ranging from immersive RPGs to classic first-person shooters.
In total, there are ten Star Wars games available on Nintendo Switch. The list below won’t include game bundles like the Heritage Collection or the Knights of the Old Republic bundle, although it’s worth noting that you can find most of the games below packaged together on the Nintendo eShop.
These blurbs contain mild spoilers for each game, including characters, settings, and story beats.
The latest Star Wars game to be remastered for Switch, Dark Forces is the first official entry in what would eventually become known as the Jedi Knight series. Assuming the role of a reformed Imperial Officer named Kyle Katarn, players embark on a covert mission for the Rebel Alliance. They’ll get the chance to explore the galaxy across several missions, taking part in frantic first-person shootouts and uncovering a story set between the events of Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope.
Read our Dark Forces review.
An arcade racer based around The Phantom Menace’s podracing sequence, Star Wars Episode 1 Racer straps players into their very own podracer and enters them into various tournaments across the galaxy. There, they’ll battle against the likes of Anakin Skywalker and Sebulba, souping up their craft with additional upgrades in an attempt to stomp out the competition and become a legend on the streets of Tatooine.
Read our Star Wars Episode 1 Racer review.
A continuation of the Star Wars Jedi Knight series, Jedi Outcast follows series’ protagonist Kyle Katarn as he re-embraces the Force and heads out on a quest for revenge. Alongside the first-person shootouts that acted as the centerpiece of earlier entries in the series, Jedi Outcast hones in on technical lightsaber dueling, with players facing off against Sith lords and their friends online in physics-based lightsaber battles.
Read our Jedi Outcast review.
Often heralded as one of the most iconic RPGs ever made, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic tells a new Star Wars story set 4,000 years before the events of The Phantom Menace. Players take on the role of a Galactic Republic soldier who crash lands on the planet of Taris after their ship is attacked.
Left stranded, they undertake a daring adventure and learn the ways of the Force, rallying against the armies of the Sith and their fearsome leader, Darth Malak. Knights of the Old Republic envisions the Star Wars universe during the height of the Jedi Civil War, allowing players to choose whether to follow the path of the light or be tempted by the corrupt allure of the dark side.
Read our Knights of the Old Republic review.
Switching out long-running Star Wars Jedi Knight protagonist Kyle Katarn for a new, fully customisable lead, Jedi Academy casts you as Jayden Korr: a Padawan studying under Katarn at the Jedi Temple. Taught in the ways of the force and provided with your very own lightsaber, you explore the galaxy, undertaking new missions and battling back against Sith forces. Jedi Academy introduced several features to the Jedi Knight series, including new fighting styles and the ability to customize lightsabers.
Read our Jedi Academy review.
An official follow-up to Bioware’s landmark RPG, Obsidian took the reins for Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2 – The Sith Lords. Set five years after the events of the original game, the player takes on the role of an exiled Jedi tasked with finding the remnants of the order and uniting them against the growing Sith army.
The ensuing journey takes players across a series of iconic Star Wars planets, where they recruit a party of allies and make choices that shape their relationship with the Jedi Order, the Sith and the Force.
Read our Knights of the Old Republic 2 review.
Moving away from lightsaber duels and tales of Jedi venturing across the galaxy, Star Wars: Republic Commando enlists players as a clone trooper, sending them to join Delta Squad as its leader: Boss. Set during the Clone Wars, players guide their unit through three first-person shooter campaigns, gunning down battle droids and other Separatist forces across iconic prequel era Star Wars locales, including Geonosis and Kashyyyk.
Read our Republic Commando review.
Set between the events of Revenge of the Sith and a New Hope, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed tells the tale of Starkiller: an apprentice under the tutelage of Darth Vader. Initially sent to hunt and kill the Jedi that survived Order 66, Star Killer’s story quickly spins out into a galaxy-wide adventure, as players build their Force abilities, engage in action-packed lightsaber combat and experience the power fantasy of being a Jedi Knight at the height of their powers.
Read our Star Wars: The Force Unleashed review.
A pinball game themed around the Star Wars saga, Star Wars Pinball is exactly what it says on the tin. It offers nineteen pinball tables with designs inspired by a spectrum of Star Wars media, ranging from The Empire Strikes Back and The Force Awakens to Rogue One and Rebels.
Traveller’s Tales latest LEGO video game, The Skywalker Saga transports all nine of the mainline Star Wars movies to the world of LEGO. From Obi-Wan and Anakin’s tragic battle above the fires of Mustafar to Luke and Vader’s legendary showdown in Bespin, The Skywalker Saga aims to be an all-encompassing recreation of the series, just with a lot more plastic bricks and minifigures.
Alongside being the biggest LEGO game to date, it also builds significantly on its predecessors, with several open-world areas to explore, more involved boss battles and new third-person shooting mechanics. It also features a stacked roster of playable Star Wars characters, with the cast including everyone from Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader to Babu Frik and Jabba the Hutt.
Read our Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga review.
As for the future of Star Wars on Nintendo Switch, you can expect at least two more adventures in a galaxy far, far away in the near future. Star Wars: Hunters is expected to make its way to Switch later this year, offering multiplayer arena combat where players form a team of heroes and go up against opponents online.
Meanwhile, on March 14, Switch players will be able get their hands on the Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection, which compiles remasters of both the original Star Wars Battlefront games into one package. On top of getting both classic third-person Star Wars shooters, the bundle will feature a few new bonuses, including additional maps, Asajj Ventress and Kit Fisto as playable heroes, and the option to play Battlefront 2’s Hero Assault mode on all Ground Maps.
Callum Williams is a freelance media writer with years of experience as a game critic, news reporter, guides writer and features writer.
“No one has come close to exhausting its full capabilities”.
Four decades after it became an international sales phenomenon and dominated a crowded games market, the Nintendo Entertainment System – the 8-bit box that gave birth to some of the medium’s biggest enduring franchises – today finds itself playing host to something else entirely: new aftermarket IPs that are strikingly polished and joyously fun.
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Warning: this article contains full spoilers for both Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth and the original Final Fantasy 7.
Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth continues the work of its predecessor, which means it not only recreates the original 1997 classic with modern graphics and gameplay, but it also makes substantial changes to the story. Interestingly, Rebirth isn’t quite as radical as Final Fantasy 7 Remake was, and for much of its runtime is a mostly faithful adaptation of what you remember. But the closer you get to the end, the bigger the rewrites become. Ahead lies the seven biggest changes, which naturally means huge spoilers for Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth and the original game. Read on at your own risk!
In the original Final Fantasy 7, the Black Materia is a mysterious, ancient magical orb that’s capable of summoning meteor, a space-faring rock that can destroy planets. Very little is known of its origin, but its destructive powers are revealed in a mural when the party visits the Temple of the Ancients.
Rebirth partly reimagines the Black Materia, giving it a full origin story. It was created by the Gi, the undead tribe that haunts the tunnels beneath Cosmo Canyon. In a brand new sequence for Rebirth, the leader of the tribe, Gi Nattak, takes you to his village, where it is revealed that the Gi have been living in a restless purgatory for centuries.
In the world of Final Fantasy 7, your spirit is created by the Lifestream and returns to it when you die. Unfortunately for them, the Gi are not born of the Lifestream. It’s never explained where they originally came from, but their outsider status means they cannot return to the Lifestream and thus are trapped as ghosts for eternity. In an effort to release them from their curse, the Gi developed a materia that turned black “with pain and spite”. They planned to use it to summon a meteor that would obliterate both themselves and the planet that held them ‘hostage’. In short: absolute nothingness is better than a tortured eternity of undeath.
Before the Gi could use the Black Materia, Aerith’s ancestors – the Cetra – stole it and locked it away in the Temple of the Ancients. Gi Nattak asks Cloud and his friends to retrieve the Black Materia for him, and while they agree to his request, they only do so in the aim of keeping it away from both the Gi and Sephiroth.
Rebirth introduces four new characters to the party: Yuffie, Cait Sith, Cid Highwind, and Vincent Valentine. If you’ve played the original, only Cait Sith will be introduced in the same way you remember.
This time around, Yuffie is not randomly found wandering the world’s forest. Instead, she washes up on the beach at Junon Harbour, with her early moments replacing the CPR scenes with Pricilla from the original game. Yuffie made her way to Junon with the aim of assassinating Rufus Shinra, and her attempt to do so happens as part of Rufus’ military parade.
Cid is also met in an entirely different part of the world. In the original game he’s recruited from his home in Rocket Town, where a disagreement with Shinra turns into an explosive escape. But in Rebirth the party never goes to Rocket Town. Instead, Cid is depicted as a pilot-for-hire. Summoned by sending up a smoke signal at Gongaga airfield, Cid’s initial role is as a fast-travel system, flying you from location to location in the Tiny Bronco. Later, he pledges himself to the party after revealing that he once met Aerith’s biological mother, Ifalna. Upset to learn that she died, Cid agrees to help Aerith in any way she needs.
Finally we have Vincent, who does still remain locked in the Shinra Mansion basement, but is this time met when the party seeks out a computer terminal that will reveal the location of the Temple of the Ancients. Vincent agrees to help, but when the group stumbles across Professor Hojo’s old Reunion lab equipment, he forcibly steps in to stop them. And by forcibly, I mean he transforms into Galian Beast, the werewolf-like monster that was his Limit Break in the original game. After being defeated, Vincent is convinced to tag along with the party because of his past association with Sephiroth and Shinra.
Throughout the game, visions of Sephiroth try to convince Cloud that Tifa is an imposter. This all comes to a head at Gongaga Reactor where a tormented Cloud lashes out at Tifa, believing that she is a manifestation of Jenova. He tries to kill her, but Tifa manages to dodge backwards and escape the reach of his sword.
While Tifa survives Cloud’s attempt on her life, she instead falls into the reactor’s lake of liquid mako. She’s then swallowed whole by a Weapon, one of the whale-like protectors of the planet. Trapped inside the Weapon’s huge materia-like belly, she watches as it swims through the Lifestream. On the journey she experiences visions from the past, including memories of her childhood conversation with Cloud when she made him promise to save her. This is all very similar to a sequence from the original game, but it took place much later when Cloud was recovering in Mideel. The sequence ends with Tifa watching a vision of Sephiroth guiding Cloud away from her, foreshadowing the villain’s grip over her friend.
The Weapon eventually resurfaces at Gongaga Reactor and, surrounded by Whispers, releases Tifa. The suggestion is that, much like when Barret was ‘killed’ and resurrected by Whispers in Final Fantasy 7 Remake, it’s not Tifa’s time to go yet.
In the original Final Fantasy 7, Aerith had no idea of the death that awaited her at the Forgotten Capital. But in Final Fantasy 7 Remake, it was suggested that Aerith was able to see the future. Rebirth reinforces this, and reveals that Red XIII also had the ability to see the future, too (provided you take him on a date at the Gold Saucer.) However, since leaving Midgar, both Red XIII and Aerith have lost their ability to see what’s ahead.
But how could Aerith and Red XIII see the future, and why can’t they now? The answer seems to be Aerith’s White Materia. In the original game this special orb was used to summon Holy, a protective magic that can defend the entire planet. In Rebirth, Red XIII explains that materia is formed of knowledge and memories, and so it seems that the White Materia is the vessel for Aerith’s visions of the future. Red XIII was presumably able to tap into those visions, perhaps as a result of his time spent at the spiritual retreat of Cosmo Canyon. The problem is that by the events of Rebirth the White Materia is no longer white – it’s colourless and ‘empty’. The memories are gone, as thus so is its power to call Holy.
Those memories were taken by the Whispers. Last year, Square Enix confirmed that each time the Whispers touched Aerith in Remake, they stole away another memory. By the time the Whisper Harbinger had been defeated, every one of her future memories had been taken away, leaving her none the wiser of her fate.
In Rebirth’s final chapter, Cloud is taken to a new reality where he meets an alternate version of Aerith who has her own working White Materia. She tells him “Whatever happens, don’t blame yourself,” clearly demonstrating that this Aerith also knows of her fate thanks to her materia. She gives her orb to Cloud and sends him back to his reality, allowing him to reunite his Aerith with a working White Materia, those future memories, and the power to call Holy.
Sephiroth’s plan in the original game was to ascend to godhood via absorbing the Lifestream. While he still seems pretty set on that ascension in the remake trilogy, Rebirth reveals that his master plan also involves conquering the multiverse via something called Reunion.
Reunion is not a new thing for Final Fantasy 7 fans, but in the original game it referred to the reunion of Jenova’s cells. In Rebirth, it refers to Sephiroth orchestrating the convergence of many different worlds or realities. He calls this a ‘homecoming’, and when it begins he says their joining is a “confluence of worlds and emotions.” It seems, then, that the mass collection of both realities and the emotions of those who live within them is important to Sephiroth’s overall plan. And since he still wants the Black Materia, it seems pretty obvious that mass destruction of not just one world but many is on his bucket list…
In the original Final Fantasy 7, Aerith was killed by Sephiroth at the Forgotten Capital. However, the final cutscene implied that her spirit lived on in the Lifestream, and that she was able to protect the planet from meteor from there. This idea has been kept for Rebirth, but it is presented in a very different way. Aerith still dies by Sephiroth’s sword, but her spiritual form lives on and can directly communicate with Cloud – although sadly the rest of the party are unaware of her presence. In the final cutscene, Aerith promises Cloud that she will stop the meteor – a clear nod to the original game’s finale.
While Aerith’s fate is only somewhat different to the original game’s version, what we see of Zack is very different. He outright died in the original, of course, but the creation of multiple realities in the remake trilogy means that Zack lives on in different worlds of the multiverse. We actually see multiple different versions of Zack across Rebirth in worlds separate from the ‘main’ reality our heroes live in. At the very end of the game, though, the Zack that fights in the final battle ponders on something Sephiroth told him: that worlds unite and part. He wonders if that means that worlds can reunite a second time. The implication – or at least the hope – is that Zack’s reality will unite with a world where he can live happily with alternate versions of Aerith and Cloud, as the ones in his reality appear to be terminally sick.
The original Final Fantasy 7 briefly established that Yuffie’s home of Wutai was once at war with Shinra. The remake trilogy has expanded on that, and it becomes a notable secondary plotpoint in Rebirth. There’s currently a cease-fire agreement between Wutai and Shinra, but Glenn Lodbrok – a former SOLDIER who defected to Wutai – is attempting to stoke the fires of war again and destroy both Shinra and Midgar. In a public address he claims that Shinra has massacred Wutai soldiers – a situation he almost certainly engineered to increase tensions – and also falsely blames the emergence of the Weapons on the company.
In the finale, it is revealed that Glenn is actually a puppet of Sephiroth, and that the attempts to reignite the Shinra vs. Wutai war is a ploy to distract Rufus. Sephiroth does not speak plainly about why he’s doing this, but he does say “our promised land will become a reality”. Based on this, it’s logical to assume that he’s trying to divert Rufus’ attention away from his goal of discovering the Promised Land. In the original Final Fantasy 7, Sephiroth sought the Promised Land as it was a place where he could absorb the mass amounts of Mako energy required to use the Black Materia and cast Meteor. Meanwhile, the late President Shinra hoped to find it and use its energy to build Neo Midgar. We know Rebirth’s version of Rufus still hopes to complete his father’s work, and it makes sense that this version of Sephiroth still requires the energy. Thus, if Rufus is distracted by a war with Wutai, then Sephiroth can more easily beat him in the race to the Promised Land.
Matt Purslow is IGN’s UK News and Features Editor.
Wish upon a card.
We made it out of February and it is finally the weekend!
Keen to keep the good vibes going, this week on Nintendo Life we celebrated the first Pokémon Presents of 2024. And what would you know, it wasn’t all that bad! The big takeaway was the grand reveal of Pokémon Legends: Z-A coming to Switch in 2025, but we also got to see a neat new TCG app too.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
