After it was memed from the moment the game was announced, Final Fantasy 7 Revelation director Naoki Hamaguchi has confirmed that jumping out of the Highwind Fortnite-style was indeed inspired by Fortnite, though only partly.
The Highwind is set to be the central mechanic of Final Fantasy 7 Revelation. The massive airship that transports the party around was a big part of the original RPG, but in the era of realism and immersion, you can’t simply drop to the ground and teleport out of the ship as you did on the PS1 when you arrived.
So when Final Fantasy 7 Revelation got its first showing earlier this year, we were treated to a look at how the Highwind is going to work in the third and final entry in the remake trilogy. You’ll be able to fly all around the world and choose which area you’re going to pop off into, which is pretty in line with what the PS1 original had. Except this time, your party launches themselves off the side of the ship, and skydives down to the map below.
Naturally, when everyone saw this, we all made the same joke, with a ton of memes of Cloud Strife asking “where we droppin'” emerging in the immediate aftermath. However, when asked about this connection by GamesRadar’s Fortnite correspondent James Daly (following the Final Fantasy 7 Revelation hands-on preview), Hamaguchi did admit, “We did get a bit of inspiration from Fortnite, [we] won’t lie about that.”
It’s funny, however, that Fortnite is the inspiration here, when Final Fantasy 7 is one of the only things left on earth that Fortnite hasn’t collaborated with, as opposed to, say, Apex Legends, which had a big Final Fantasy 7 crossover and also features the squad dropping out of the sky, or the now-dead Final Fantasy 7: The First Soldier battle royale game.