The long awaitedFinal Fantasy 7 Remakefinally released back in April to great fanfare, with the only caveat being it wasn’t the entire original game remade. Some were disappointed by this, but for the most part, fans appreciated the far greater attention to detail.Remake’s first episode was absolutely crafted as a nostalgic love letter for fans, and while it stays mostly true to the original story,Remakeonly got through the Midgar section of the story. Now it’s up to subsequent episodes to flesh out the rest, but that potentially poses a big problem.
Both literally and metaphorically, subsequent episodes ofFinal Fantasy 7 Remakecould run into big problems with larger storage requirements and the carrying over of content from the first game. That brings up the issue of whether or not the base game will need to be installed alongside the second episode, or if it will be released standalone with just a unified client instead.Modern Warfarehad a similar issue, but was able to rectify that with picking and choosing installations. Hopefully,Final Fantasy 7 Remakewon’t need to deal with that.
A Modern Warfare Sized Dilemma For Remake
Square Enix, while not telling fans exactly how many episodes there will be, has made it abundantly clear thatFinal Fantasy 7 Remakeis releasing in several episodesinstead of one cohesive game. There hasn’t been any word on whether it’ll be considered an expansion or a standalone game, or if the game will even release at full price or lesser DLC pricing. Although many assumeFinal Fantasy 7 Remake Part 2will likely be full price, the jury’s out for whether or not the two episodes mechanically link together.
With each episodic release, the foundation of the firstFinal Fantasy 7 Remakemay be a required installation to run the second episode. That poses a problem for anyone who doesn’t have a whole lot of space todedicate toRemake, which already requires 100GBof hard drive space. That poses a couple options for the actual install of the second episode: either copy all of the foundational elements like character models, battle mechanics, etc. into a standalone release, or the game utilizes those mechanics from the firstRemakeinstallation to save space for the additional content inRemakePart 2.
Bringing along all of the foundational mechanics into the second episode as a standalone game at least gives players the option to uninstall the first episode. The latter option would meanRemake Part 2is basically considered one big DLC, which comes at the cost of a massive storage requirement.
How Will Cross Progression Work?
Other than storage issues, another big question withFinal Fantasy 7 Remakewill be how progression will carry over into the next episode. It’s a valid concern for fans who may have poured countless hours intoRemake’s first episode. For comparison, an average playthrough without any kind of extraneous experience grinding usually landed players in the level 35-40 range. Players who completed all side quests, collected all the high power weapons, new game plus, etc. likely would’ve ended up on averagearound level 50, which isRemake’s max level.
The max level in the originalFinal Fantasy 7is 99, but consideringRemakeonly takes place during the first seven-ish hours of the original game, being at bare minimum level 30 upon leaving Midgar is much higher than the first game. A typical playthrough of the originalFinal Fantasy 7usually would’ve landed players around level 15-20. It’s reasonable to assume progress will carry over intoFinal Fantasy 7 Remake Part 2, but it’s very possible level scaling may be implemented. Otherwise, player parties will be far too overpowered and closer to reaching max level than any average playthrough ofFinal Fantasy 7.
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Final Fantasy 7 Remake’s World May Be Restricted
Even in the likely outcome thatFinal Fantasy 7 Remake Part 2releases as its own standalone game,Remake’s future is definitely uncertain. Considering the producers of the game aren’t even surehow many episodesFinal Fantasy 7 Remakewill have, there could be some serious restrictions on the open world to save space. At bare minimum, players may not be able to return to Midgar inRemake’s second episode. Assuming every new area inFinal Fantasy 7 Remakeis given the same attention, there’s no way the entire world could be included.
Loading times won’t necessarily be a problem on PS5/Xbox Series XforFinal Fantasy 7 Remake, but the storage size problem still remains the same. Of course, a lot of this information won’t be clarified for quite some time, but it is something fans should be wary of moving into the next-generation.Final Fantasy 7 Remake’s next release has plenty of hype surrounding it, but fans should at least be aware that things will likely be a bit more constrained compared to the original game.
Final Fantasy 7 Remake Part 2is in development.
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