Cloud Strife lovers might have noticed a distinct lack of the iconic, spike-headed hero in all the Final Fantasy 7 Revelation trailers we’ve seen so far. While players of the original certainly know the why of it all, series director and game lead Naoki Hamaguchi says it gives players a chance to “see more” of the RPG’s colorful party members.
Speaking to GamesRadar+, Final Fantasy 7 Remake’s Hamaguchi assured folks that “Cloud is still the main character” of the upcoming game, even if he’s not as front and centre in the marketing campaign as you might have expected. His leave of absence in the party gives the rest of the cast time to shine, however.
Hamaguchi adds that he knows fans “want to see more of the other characters too, so we very much wanted to have content that goes into each of those characters.” To accommodate those desires, players can freely switch between each party member on the fly and bring a different party composition into side quests.
There’s also a ton of new stuff to discover for each hero. For instance, Red 13 has an entire narrative arc somehow revolving around the moreish Queen’s Blood card game this time around. And Hamaguchi recently revealed that we can learn more about Tifa by engaging with the threequel’s piano mini-game, as well, per an interview with VGC. I imagine finally going back to Wutai will give us lots of never-before-seen Yuffie lore, too.
Fans of the original game know that doesn’t mean Cloud is being kicked out of the spotlight, however. At least, not for very long. Either way, Final Fantasy 7 Revelation is shaping up to be an absolutely massive romp, so there should be more than enough screentime to go around.