Everything Final Fantasy 7 Remake Part 3 Has Left to Cover

With Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth out of the way, the Final Fantasy 7 remake project is about two-thirds complete. Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth concludes at perhaps the most famous plot point of the original game, which is followed by a series of shocking, significant developments. As such, there’s a lot of dense, compelling narrative ground for Rebirth’s sequel to cover.

Massive spoilers ahead for the entire Final Fantasy 7 saga.

Given the precedent set by Final Fantasy 7 Remake and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, there’s a strong chance that several elements from the original FF7 will continue to be altered or expanded upon in the third remake chapter. Although Rebirth alone is considerably longer and more content-rich than the entirety of the original FF7, both it and Remake technically only cover the first of three discs, equating to about 50% of the main story content. In other words, there’s plenty for Square Enix to work with, giving the third FF7 remake the potential to be the biggest, most ambitious one yet.

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth’s Aerith Situation Helps Make Things Even With One Other Character

Players may be left waiting a bit longer for Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth’s follow up, but Aerith’s situation helps even the playing field in the party.

The Truth Behind Cloud and Sephiroth Will Be Revealed

Right after Aerith is killed by Sephiroth, the party travels to the far north and books a stay in a resort town called Icicle Inn, which is where FF7’s famous snowboarding minigame takes place. From this base of operations, they travel to the North Crater in further pursuit of Sephiroth. Once there, they see him killing the black-robed men (who we learn are actually Sephiroth clones), and throwing their bodies into the Lifestream.

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After defeating Sephiroth, obtaining the Black Materia, and continuing through the North Crater map, the party once again encounters its foe, who partially reveals the twist about Cloud’s identity and his false memories, though Cloud is left believing that he is a Sephiroth clone created from Jenova cells. It’s also revealed that the versions of Sephiroth we’ve encountered thus far are actually just clones as well; Sephiroth’s real body lies within the North Crater, transported there by the Lifestream after the events at Nibelheim.

Cloud, traumatized, confused, and still under the influence of the Jenova cells implanted into him by Hojo, is manipulated into giving the real Sephiroth the Black Materia, allowing him to summon Meteor, which will destroy the Planet (AKA Gaia). This awakens the Weapons, giant biomechanical monsters that emerge whenever the Planet is in grave danger. Cloud falls into the crumbling earth and is separated from the rest of his team.

The Rise of the Weapons and the Redemption of Cloud

Weapons are perhaps the strongest enemies in the original Final Fantasy 7. One of them, Sapphire Weapon, is killed by Shinra using Junon’s Sister Ray, and players themselves are forced to fight Diamond Weapon, but the other four Weapons are optional, making up a hefty portion of FF7’s side content:

Ruby Weapon
Emerald Weapon
Jade Weapon
Ultimate Weapon

After Ultimate Weapon crashes in Mideel, an island region that should be among the new locations in the next Final Fantasy 7 remake, Cloud and Tifa fall into the Lifestream, which allows the latter to see the former’s repressed memories. Thus, more context is given for Cloud’s memory loss, and although his fears of being a failed Sephiroth clone are alleviated, he is still floored by the realization that he was never a SOLDIER, and that Zack died trying to save him. Tifa helps him through this, and they ultimately rejoin the party.

The End (of Humanity?)

All the while, Meteor continues to approach the planet, threatening to destroy it entirely. After halting Shinra’s plan to obtain Huge Materia and create a weapon of mass destruction to counter Meteor, the party learns that Aerith’s final act before death was to pray to the Planet and get it to release Holy, a spell to block Meteor. However, Sephiroth is blocking Holy from being released, and the party descends into the planet’s core to stop him.

After what will almost certainly be the longest boss battle in the Final Fantasy 7 remake project, Sephiroth is defeated once and for all, but it’s too late: Holy doesn’t have enough time to completely stop Meteor. Just as it looks like all hope is lost, Aerith’s spirit compels the Lifestream to push Meteor away, allowing Holy to destroy it.

After the credits, a title screen announces that 500 years have passed. We then see a cutscene of Red XIII and two pups, presumably his offspring, overlooking the ruins of Midgar, which is overrun with vegetation. This confirms that the Planet itself has remained intact, and that several species have survived (the cutscene also shows a flock of birds), but the ultimate fate of humanity, and urban civilization in particular, is left up to interpretation.

How Different Will Final Fantasy Remake Part 3 Be from the Original?

The Final Fantasy 7 remake saga has been fairly consistent with the original game’s story so far. Even its most radical departure, the suggestion of a multiverse, doesn’t explicitly contradict any established lore—not yet, at least. However, that could conceivably change in part three, which involves the game’s most complex plot developments. Perhaps, for instance, elements of Cloud’s true identity will be retconned somehow via this quasi-multiverse/timeline splitting element.

Another, more pressing example of how this could manifest is in the ending. While there’s ambiguity with respect to humanity’s ultimate fate in the original game, extended media like the Advent Children film confirm that humans were not annihilated by Meteor. The canon status of these pieces of media could be recontextualized, depending on how the next Final Fantasy 7 remake presents the ending: it’s possible that Square Enix will disambiguate the finale for the purpose of easier franchise-building, clearing up confusion regarding the future of the FF7 universe.