Five events that could change in Final Fantasy VII Remake Part 2

(Image credit: Square Enix)

By now, the dust has settled on Square Enix’s remake of Final Fantasy VII, which came out just over a month ago. Critics and gamers alike are in agreement that the game is brilliant, although there remains some much justified uneasiness about how the rest of the series will shape up. After all, it took five years to make this first installment of Final Fantasy VII Remake, and it only covers approximately the first 5% of the original game’s massive story.

Although Remake leaves off right as hero Cloud Strife and his companions leave the dystopian city of Midgar (the point where the original FFVII actually gets going), it still has a full, epic conclusion. But while much of the game is quite faithful to the original, simply expanding on the events of the 1997 classic, the end of FFVII Remake takes a huge leap into the unknown. It also opens the door for some much more drastic departures in future installments.

I pause now to say that if you haven’t finished the game and don’t want the ending spoiled, you may want to stop reading here, because there are massive SPOILERS ahead.

Saying the ending of Final Fantasy VII Remake is a bold one feels like the understatement of the year. To put it in a nutshell, as Cloud and company are about to leave Midgar, they decide to chase Sephiroth through a portal that leads to the dwelling place of the Whispers, shadowy creatures described by Red XIII as “arbiters of fate.” The Whispers are basically the protectors of the original Final Fantasy VII’s canon. Whenever Remake starts to deviate too much from the original story, the Whispers have a tendency to show up and force the characters back onto the “right” path, usually either by helping them escape danger or forcing them into it.

If that’s not meta enough, once Cloud, Aerith, Tifa, Barret, and Red XIII go through the portal in pursuit of Sephiroth, they come face-to-face with the Whisper Harbinger, the ruler of the Whispers. An epic battle ensues, our heroes prevail, and the big take-away is that they have vanquished destiny itself. There are some cutscenes and flashes that happen during that sequence that strongly allude to events changing, possibly even spreading into alternate timelines.

And if you still didn’t get what this all means for future games, Square Enix proclaims it outright by having a message pop across your screen right as the credits roll, proclaiming that “the unknown journey will continue.”

The protectors of the FF7 canon have now been defeated, and while we’ll continue on with the same cast, the sequels now have to freedom to take the story in any direction they want. What major events might be different? That’s what we’re here to talk about.

There’s a lot of story to cover, we’re going to focus specifically on events that come along early enough in the original game that they could make it into Remake Part 2 in some form or another. Some are smaller moments; others are among the game’s most iconic. Let’s get into it: