Highlights

  • Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth excels in integrating every facet of gameplay into its open-world design for a genuinely great experience.
  • The confirmed inclusion of the Highwind airship in the third installment hints at a base of operations for fast travel.
  • Returning to previous regions in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth may not offer the same distractions, with the focus on new areas, but they could still feature in some capacity to make the world feel huge.

After dabbling with open-world game design and mechanics in the series' last two mainline entries, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth makes good on the promise of a genuine open-world Final Fantasy title. Where Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth's open-world design sticks the landing is in its careful integration of every facet of gameplay into its design, making exploration and adventuring off the beaten path just as important as progressing through the game's main quest. With the second chapter in the Final Fantasy 7 remake trilogy fully adopting an open world, it's hard to imagine the series backtracking in the third entry, which makes its confirmed inclusion of the Highwind airship all the more intriguing.

Ahead of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth's release, creative director and original Final Fantasy 7 character designer Tetsuya Nomura confirmed that players can expect to have airship travel available as part of the third and final installment. Prior to that confirmation from the minds behind the game, several keen-eyed fans noticed the Highwind making an appearance in the trailers for Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, though it did not make it into the final release of the game as a controllable vehicle. Considering the size and scale of Rebirth's open world and where the trilogy has yet to go, there are some implications regarding what airship travel in the Highwind likely will and won't look like.

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How Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth's Open World Design is Leaps Ahead of FF15's

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth learns all the best lessons from a decade of open-world design to craft an experience that far exceeds that of FF15.

What Final Fantasy 15, 16 Might Indicate About the Highwind's Inclusion in the FF7 Threequel

Final Fantasy 15's inclusion of the Regalia served as the stand-in for the series' trademark airships, and it was the primary means that players used to navigate the game's massive open world. Of course, one of the downfalls of Final Fantasy 15 was that its troubled development cycle wound up causing the game to ship in an unfinished state, and the sparse and empty-feeling nature of its open world was only exacerbated by traversing around it in a relatively "normal" style vehicle by Final Fantasy standards. Final Fantasy 16's solution to this problem was to do away with an open world altogether in favor of semi-open "zones", but that ship has arguably sailed for the third entry in the Final Fantasy 7 remake trilogy.

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth's open world is one of the game's many triumphs, and it's such an integral part of the core gameplay loop that it's hard to imagine the third entry somehow scaling things back. Knowing that the Highind will feature prominently in the third entry as a vehicle players can pilot, though, it also doesn't make sense for the world to be fully traversable at a moment's notice due to its size and scale. Instead, what might be more likely is that the Highwind will serve as a mobile base of operations akin to Final Fantasy 16's Hideaway. Players can use the Highwind as a means of fast travel between all the regions of Final Fantasy 7's world map, then return to the ship as a hub area and safehaven between excursions.

Players Shouldn't Expect Much From Returning to Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth's Regions

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth grants players their first taste of branching out beyond the walls of Midgar and into the world of Gaia, providing 7 main open-world regions that players will get to experience during their time in its open world:

  • Grasslands
  • Junon
  • Corel
  • Gongaga
  • Cosmo Canyon
  • Nibel
  • Meridian Ocean

Each of these open world areas are absolutely bursting with activities for players to complete as well as their own fiends for players to do battle with. While it's possible that the inclusion of the Highwind airship in the third Final Fantasy 7 remake title will allow players to return to previously visited regions, it's likely that they won't contain the same amount of noteworthy distractions. There's still plenty of Final Fantasy 7's map for a third game to cover, and even with the inclusion of the airship confirmed, players should expect the focus to be on new areas of Gaia's map rather than retreading old ground covered in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth.