Final Fantasy 7 Revelation director confirms major fan theory, for anyone who still doubted it

For anyone who still doubted Final Fantasy 7 Remake’s place in the timeline canon, Square Enix has cleared up some confusion by confirming a major fan theory.

At a surface level, the Final Fantasy 7 remake trilogy is a modern-day refresh of the 1997 classic, split across three games which retell the story with new plot beats and some rather big changes.

However, if you were paying attention to the story you’d notice there’s actually a pretty important reason for some of these changes.

It’s difficult to explain this properly without spoilers, so we’ll just warn you now that we’re getting into spoiler territory for the original Final Fantasy 7, as well as Final Fantasy 7 Remake and Rebirth.

So, one prevailing fan theory for the two remake games so far is that they’re actually sequels to the original Final Fantasy 7, and that the Sephiroth that appears in the remake has either time-travelled or has knowledge of future events which allows him to manipulate it for his own gain, essentially “remaking” the timeline.

The plot essentially hinges on the fact that the events of Final Fantasy 7 happened, with some smaller details in Remake and Rebirth also pointing to this, as well as the tie-in novel Final Fantasy 7: On the Way to a Smile also hinting at some of the changes made to Sephiroth and Aerith.

Final Fantasy 7 Remake is a sequel, but it's still just a fan theory for now

Still, despite this, we haven’t had much in the way of actual confirmation by in-game sources, which is why this remains a popular fan theory for now. Not that many of us doubted it.

And now, a new comment made by lead developer Naoki Hamaguchi has added more weight to the theory.

Speaking to GamesRadar, Hamaguchi confirms that fans “aren’t mistaken at all” for recommending the original before playing the remakes. The reason why is because "the storyline of the original Final Fantasy 7 is very much enshrined within the story [and] the narrative of the Remake series as a thing in the world."

It sounds like Final Fantasy 7 Revelation will finally be closing the door on whether this is just a fan theory, or if there’s actually some truth to it.

“If you know what that original storyline is and you can pick up on what's changing or looking like it's going to change, you're going to have more fun," Hamaguchi adds. "And you're going to get more out of it.”

While some purists wanted the remake trilogy to be closer to the original 1997 game (and we’ll stress again that despite these changes, these games still are just like the original), it’s generally agreed upon that Remake and Rebirth have been excellent adaptations of the original story.

In our Gamescom preview of Final Fantasy 7 Revelation, we were most excited about the prospect of using the Highwind to travel through the open world, saying that it’s “going to be the highlight of the game.”

Final Fantasy 7 Revelation will be released for PC, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch 2, and PlayStation 5 on April 8, 2027.