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Final Fantasy 7 launched in Japan exactly 20 years ago today, and Square Enix commemorated the milestone with a new screenshot from the game’s upcoming PlayStation 4 remake. Unfortunately for fans eagerly awaiting both that game and the similarly anticipated Kingdom Hearts 3, the company had nothing else to offer on how development’s going.
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Square Enix debuted the image above, referred to as the “key visual” from Final Fantasy 7 Remake, during the opening ceremony for Final Fantasy’s 30th anniversary celebrations. The event saw a handful of other series announcements, but the developer had little else to show or say about the remake project.
Director Tetsuya Nomura said earlier this year that production on the game would take a bit longer than expected. It’s hard to say just when we can expect the remake to hit PlayStation 4, as the company hasn’t said given fans much of a timeline.
Still, this is the first time we’ve seen the game in any capacity since December 2015, when a new teaser was shown at PlayStation Experience. Cloud and primary antagonist Sephiroth have come a long way from the blocky PlayStation 1 days, with their high-def looks reminiscent of how they appeared in the film Final Fantasy 7: Advent Children.
It’s only fitting that Square Enix’s other big project with no release date got some attention today as well. The Kingdom Hearts series’ Twitter account updated with a new screenshot from Kingdom Hearts 3, although it’s even less revealing than the Final Fantasy 7 Remake art.
#_KH #FFVII20th pic.twitter.com/D90CvP0duv
— キングダム ハーツ (@_KINGDOMHEARTS) January 31, 2017
That would be Kingdom Hearts hero Sora from behind. Some fans of both Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts pointed out that this is a clever tribute to some iconic Final Fantasy 7 imagery:
@_KINGDOMHEARTS pic.twitter.com/e05pYjKK0w
— SHIΞLD (@SHIELD_DRAWS) January 31, 2017
Cloud has appeared in previous Kingdom Hearts games, but this new piece of art doesn’t mean that Final Fantasy 7 will figure prominently into the next Kingdom Hearts game. That being said, we know very little about Kingdom Hearts 3, but considering that franchise also has a big birthday coming up, here’s hoping Square Enix gives us more details later this year.
In the meantime, start reading our extensive oral history of Final Fantasy 7, an in-depth project that took Polygon several years to construct.