Final Fantasy VII Rebirth will not support the importation of save file data from Final Fantasy VII Remake, as stated by director Naoki Hamaguchi.
In an interview with the official PlayStation Blog published after a new Final Fantasy VII Rebirth trailer premiered as part of Sony’s latest State of Play presentation, Hamaguchi emphasized that these fresh interpretations of the Final Fantasy VII story are a trilogy of independent games, rather than a single game divided into three parts.
“Due to this, each game’s balancing is conducted separately, and a player’s levels and abilities will not transfer from one game to the next,” Hamaguchi explained. “However, we have prepared some special rewards for fans who played the previous game, allowing them to start with a small additional advantage.”
This “additional advantage” comes in the form of summon materia for players who possess save files on their PlayStation 5 for Final Fantasy VII Remake and/or Final Fantasy VII Remake’s Yuffie-centric DLC, Episode INTERmission, as confirmed by an official Square Enix blog. Players who delve into Rebirth after playing Remake will receive a Leviathan materia, while those with INTERmission saves will obtain a Ramuh materia. It is understandable that players will not be able to transfer their maximum level characters from Remake to Rebirth, but at least fans who have experienced the previous entry will receive a slight early power boost as a reward.
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth’s latest trailer provided fans with their most comprehensive glimpse yet of the upcoming installment in the trilogy. The action-packed trailer showcased the return of iconic locations such as the Golden Saucer and Costa del Sol, new mechanics for traversing the open world, improvements to Remake’s combat system, a variety of minigames, glimpses of summons like Odin and Alexander, and much more. Characters who were not fully playable in Remake, such as Red XIII, will be playable in Rebirth. However, additional characters who join the party during Rebirth’s narrative will not be playable until the third entry in the trilogy, which remains unnamed, according to Hamaguchi.
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is set to release on February 29, 2024, for PS5 and will be packaged with two discs. It is currently available for preorder.
