Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth appears to be going all-in with depicting a timeline that dramatically departs from the original game, which was prone to throwing narrative curveballs regarding how events are remembered versus what happened. Not much is still known about Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, but given what has been revealed in trailers, audiences should fully expect everything to be at least a little different from what it seems.
Contrary to many remakes faithfully retell that faithfully retell their stories, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth appears to be taking the original game's story in a radically different direction as hinted in parts of Final Fantasy 7 Remake. This leads many features up in the air as to the order events happen and how they will play out thanks to the changes made.
What Multiple Timelines Can Mean For Final Fantasy 7
Final Fantasy 7 can already be a confusing game to follow at points, as protagonist Cloud Strife's memories had been distorted due to being manipulated by Sephiroth. He has vivid memories of events he never partook in, including his supposed involvement during the tragedy at Nibelheim where Sephiroth went berserk, killing many civilians.
The trailer for Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth plays into this aspect of his character by having a moment in the trailer where Sephiroth attempts to convince Cloud that the Tifa in his party is not his childhood friend while showing a clip of her being cut down in the Nibelheim reactor. This is further emphasized by Tifa stating in the trailer that Cloud was never in Nibelheim 5 years before the game's events, contradicting what he remembers. In the case of the original game, this is true, as the person who had rescued a wounded Tifa was Zack Fair and Cloud's involvement was one of his false memories.
Given that Zack appears to be alive in the new timeline, events have been distorted to the point where characters who had died are somehow alive, opening the door for the opposite to be true. While the Tifa in the party is who she says she is in the original, knowing what is possible in the Final Fantasy 7 Remake trilogy can potentially plant a seed of doubt about her identity in players' minds. By going all-in on multiple timelines, players are essentially put in Cloud's position where their memories of the past might not be the truth within the context of this new timeline. It's an effective part of how this trilogy has been marketed so far, as it makes it unclear if events that fans have already seen will remain as they were in the original.
With the whispers from Final Fantasy 7 Remake now being gone, it appears as though Rebirth and the final installment of the trilogy can go in any number of directions. Since the whispers' purpose was to preserve events to remain the way they were supposed to play out, it could be a waste to not significantly deviate from the source material to carve out a new fate for the game's cast. Whether said fate will be more optimistic or grim remains to be seen.
What is interesting is that players supposedly do not need to play Final Fantasy 7 Remake to fully enjoy Rebirth, which most likely means it will effectively catch new players up to the story so far but can imply that events from Rebirth could end up contradicting the previous game in intentional ways to show the consequences of the party's actions. Since events from the past were already changed, it would be interesting to see this element explored in further detail to nail how different this timeline can be from how things were supposed to be.
Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth will come out early 2024 for PS5.
