Final Fantasy VII Remake

Final Fantasy VII Remake is part one of Square Enix's reimagining of the story of Final Fantasy VII. It released worldwide on April 10, 2020 for PlayStation 4. Players that pre-ordered got the Chocobo Chick Summon Materia DLC, while players that ordered non-basic releases also got access to the Jumbo Cactuar Summon Materia DLC. Players that purchased the 1st Class or Digital Deluxe Editions also got the Carbuncle Summon Materia DLC. The game also supports HDR and 4K resolution if running on a PlayStation 4 Pro.

Gameplay
Combat uses an action-orientated system that uses ATB charges to perform certain actions; these charges are obtained via repeated manual attacks. Actions such as casting a spell or using an item use one ATB charge from a maximum of two that a character can hold at once; however, players can use limit breaks without consuming an ATB charge. Materia also makes a return, with some materia being removed, some being reworked, and some altogether-new materia being introduced, such as the Deadly Dodge Materia. Additionally, some materia from the original version of Final Fantasy VII can potentially be found much earlier in the game journey.

Development
At E3 2015, Square Enix announced that they were remaking Final Fantasy VII, and it was to debut first on the PlayStation 4. On December 5, 2015, the same day that the PlayStation 4 release of Final Fantasy VII was released on the PlayStation Store, a gameplay trailer was released that showed segments of the introduction mission, combat footage, and samples of both character animation and voice acting. According to the trailer, at least part of Midgar is explorable on foot, both Biggs, Wedge and Jessie and the main characters have voice acting, and at least the opening boss, the Guard Scorpion, is included, with an updated appearance.

The remake will be a series of games. As Yoshinori Kitase explains here, the sheer size of remaking Final Fantasy VII makes a multi-game series the only logical way to attempt it.

Not much news was released regarding this title after E3 2015, although Cyberconnect2, after originally being hired as co-developers, are now no longer involved. The news drought was a deliberate ploy by Square Enix to water down the hype for Final Fantasy VII Remake so that Kingdom Hearts III, which released on January 25, 2019 for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, would enjoy the fans' full attention.

On May 10, 2019, Sony released a State of Play video trailer for Final Fantasy VII Remake, showing much more of the early part of the game, and for the first time featuring footage of character dialogue, making it clear to fans that the Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children voice actors were not being rehired.

In June 2019 at E3 2019, an extended gameplay trailer was shown, incorporating a hybrid Action/ATB battle system. Barret, Cloud, Aerith, and Tifa were all teased during the gameplay reveal, with a boss battle against the Scorpion Sentinel (called Guard Scorpion in the original game) taking up the majority of the gameplay presentation, although teases of future bosses were shown, such as Aps and Air Buster.

On January 14, 2020, Yoshinori Kitase, the Producer of Final Fantasy VII Remake, announced that the release date of the game had been pushed back to April 10, in order to provide final polish to the game and to deliver the best possible experience.

On March 2. 2020, a demo of Final Fantasy VII Remake was released via the PlayStation Store that covered part of Chapter 1 of the final version of the game. Later that same month, Square Enix began shipping copies earlier in some regions as a response to the Coronavirus pandemic, meaning that some fans received their copy of the game up to two weeks before the official release date. As of April 10, 2020, Final Fantasy VII Remake had become the #2 best-selling Final Fantasy video game in the United States.