Summary

  • Before Final Fantasy 8 Rebirth launched, fans wondered how it was going to handle the original game's big tragedy.
  • It's fair to say that the confusing nature of Rebirth's ending disappointed a lot of fans and led to mixed reactions.
  • It seems that the team was more than expecting that and is happy with how much discussion the scene has led to.

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth producer Yoshinori Kitase has confirmed that the team expected a mixed and divisive response to the game's confusing ending and how it depicts Aerith's fate.

For decades after the release of the original Final Fantasy 7 on PS1, fans begged Square Enix to give it the remake treatment and let a whole new generation experience it. That was a tall task for a game as massive as FF7 (clearly, since the remake was split into three parts), but the biggest challenge of all was seeing how the team would adapt Aerith's fate.

Spoilers for Final Fantasy 7 and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth below.

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As almost everyone knows by now, Aerith ends up getting killed by Sephiroth towards the end of the original game, which many cite as one of the most tragic deaths in an RPG. Since the Remake trilogy is more of a meta-reimagining, fans were very curious to see how Rebirth would handle the scene, and the end result was confusing, to say the least.

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth Devs Knew How We'd React To The Game's Ending

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth's take on Aerith's fate is a lot more confusing than the original and makes it unclear whether she's truly dead or has a chance of coming back due to the multiverse shenanigans. This caused a bit of a mixed response considering how iconic the original version of the scene is, but it looks like that's exactly what the devs were expecting.

As pointed out by Twitter user aitaikimochi, the Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth team recently had a chance to chat with 4Gamer about the game's launch on PC earlier this week. One of the first things that producer Yoshinori Kitase is asked is whether there was any fan feedback that particularly stood out to him.

In response, Kitase said that the reaction to Aerith's fate was "huge", just like the team expected. Kitase notes that the developers tried new things in terms of "expression and direction", which resulted in it being received in very different ways. The producer also points out how much discussion Rebirth's take on the scene caused.

As expected, the reaction to how Aerith's fate was depicted was huge. While basically following the original work, we tried new things in terms of expression and direction, so I think it was received in a variety of ways. More people than we expected have been discussing and considering it. - Yoshinori Kitase

While it's clear that Kitase is aware that not all fans liked how Rebirth handled Aerith's fate, it seems that he's happy overall as he hoped that people would be interested in what happens going into the third game. Here's hoping Remake Part 3 makes it a little more clear what happened to Aerith.

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