The Final Fantasy VII Remake games are massive. As a result, both the first one and 2023’s Rebirth shipped on two discs. A data disc was required to install the game, while a second disc had to be inserted in order to play. With Revelation, Square Enix has decided to buck that trend, and not everyone’s okay with it.
No second disc effectively means that FFVII Revelation on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S will be the equivalent of the game key card that it is on Switch 2. It’ll be a glorified DRM key that still relies on Sony or Microsoft’s network servers to download the full game in the future should it ever be deleted from players’ hard drives. It’s become an especially contentious issue amid the ongoing backlash against Sony’s decision to end new PlayStation discs in 2028.
“We’re still having internal discussions on what the exact SKU product lineup is going to be for Revelation,” said director Naoki Hamaguchi back in July. “So I can’t say anything particularly definitive at this point in time. But I am working to make the arrangements to allow us to have some kind of physical edition.” The comment left some fans hopeful that the FFVII Remake trilogy finale was getting the full disc treatment, and they were equally confused when recently announced pre-orders revealed the download requirement.
“Before we arrived at that decision, there were a lot of internal discussions and back and forth amongst myself and other internal staff members in terms of how we should treat or handle the physical editions,” Hamaguchi told IGN in a newer interview defending the move. “And this whole disc discussion, it is a rather sensitive issue, and I don’t think a lot of the media has asked us about this so far. So I would like to discuss how we approached it.”
He continued at length:
First and foremost, personally, I’m very happy that we are able to release a physical disc version of FFVII Revelation considering how the entire gaming market, or the landscape, is veering towards the disc-less direction. And after we launched preorders, we did see some fans voicing their concerns and raising questions about the physical discs requiring some internet download. So I would like to address that.
When we had an internal discussion with the development team about how we wanted to approach the physical discs and the physical releases of FFVII Revelation, initially there were conversations about using the same disc size as we did for, say, FFVII Rebirth. But if we were to do that, it would mean that we would have to make a compromise in terms of the fidelity and the quality of the game. So as a development team, we didn’t want to do that. We didn’t want to make any compromises for the game.
So realistically, the only choice that we had was to release this physical disc, but with certain sections of the game being a digital download format through the physical disc. With that being said, I completely understand that not all players might be happy with this decision, but at the same time, I am happy that we were still able to release a physical format of the game. So I am quite satisfied with the end results as well. I would hope that our fans and players would be able to share that as well.
It’s not immediately clear what sort of compromises Hamaguchi is alluding to. Rebirth was massive with a nearly 150GB install size. With PS5 discs holding up to 100GB, Revelation would have to be way bigger to warrant three discs total. And even then, that would seem to be an issue of the added cost of shipping a physical edition versus a problem of ensuring game quality. It’s also possible the director was talking about optimizations that wouldn’t be made in time for the first run of game discs to ship.
In either case, Hamaguchi’s explanation has done little to satisfy critics of the digital download requirement. His post about the topic on X has already been community noted by frustrated fans. “PS5 games aren’t limited to a one disc,” it reads. “While each PS5 game disc can hold up to100GB, multiple-disc releases are supported and have been used for large PS5games.Therefore, claiming that avoiding multiple discs requires compromising game quality is a lie, not a technical necessity.”
Whatever the rationale, it doesn’t look like Square Enix is planning to reverse course. And with the game out April 8, it won’t be long after launch until Sony stops letting companies ship new game discs altogether.
