During Sony’s latest State of Play on Thursday, Square Enix revealed a new gameplay trailer for Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, the next entry in its FF7 Remake trilogy. The game looks very good and I’m excited to play it. Also announced Thursday: A $350 Collector’s Edition of the game. I’m…less excited about that.

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth continues after the events of Final Fantasy VII Remake, which took the first major section of 1997’s classic RPG Final Fantasy VII and translated it into an action-RPG. Remake’s storyline also changed up some details, both big and small, to create what appears to be a new timeline that is both separate from but somehow connected to that of the original game and its many spin-offs.

Today’s trailer for the upcoming Rebirth shows this new sequel will continue to shake things up, depicting Zack from Crisis Core carrying Cloud into a city, something that doesn’t happen in the original game. (Also…Cloud riding a Segway?)

Interesting stuff! Anyway, the new trailer looks cool, so you might be excited to pre-order the game ahead of its February 29, 2024 debut. About that. The standard edition of the game will cost $69.99, and the “deluxe” will be $99.99. But the biggest, most expensive version of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is the collector’s edition…and it costs more than a Nintendo Switch.

What’s included in the Collector’s Edition of FF7 Rebirth?

According to Square Enix’s official store, this pricey, $349.99 edition of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth comes with the following:

•Final Fantasy VII Rebirth – Deluxe Edition
Art BookMini SoundtrackSteelBook® Case

•Large Collectible Statue
Approx. 48cm / 19 inches tall and depicting the iconic antagonist Sephiroth in highly detailed sculpting. The wing can be detached.

•Moogle Trio Summoning Materia (DLC)
A summoning materia that can call “Moogle Trio” in the game.

•Magic Pot Summoning Materia (DLC)
A summoning materia that can call “Magic Pot” in the game.

•Accessory: Reclaimant Choker (DLC)
A choker with an effect of restoring HP when an enemy is defeated.

•Armor: Orchid Bracelet (DLC)
A bracelet that gives courage to traverse an expanding world.

•Armor: Midgar Bangle Mk. II (DLC)
A bracelet worn by travelers leaving Midgar.

So, does all of this sound like it’s worth $350? For some, the answer is probably yes. For others, a solid maybe. And for many out there, like me, the answer is a strong “nope.”

Personally, the prospect of a $350 edition of a video game makes me roll my eyes so hard they fall out of my head and I have to scramble around on the floor for a few minutes to pick them back up. But I’m also not a person who cares much for statues or collectibles. At the very least it’s nice that Square Enix is including a physical copy of the game in this pricey package!

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth launches on February 29, 2024 exclusively on PlayStation 5. The base game costs $70. The deluxe edition is $100. And as mentioned, the Collector’s Edition, at $350, costs more than an Xbox Series S.

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Square Enix has recently unveiled a lot of new details about Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, the next chapter in its three-part remake trilogy of the classic 1997 RPG. One key bit of info is that players won’t be able to import their saves from Final Fantasy VII Remake into Rebirth, but there will be a reward for those who played the last game and its DLC.

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, out exclusively on PlayStation 5 on February 29, 2024, takes place after the events of 2020’s FF7 Remake and its Intergrade DLC. Like the first game, this new sequel seems to be a visually stunning remake of Square’s beloved PS1 RPG megahit, Final Fantasy VII. As before, in Rebirth small and big details of the original storyline seem to have been tweaked, leading to interesting results. And with Rebirth directly continuing the adventure of Cloud and gang, some might assume they can carry over their saves into the sequel, but that isn’t the case.

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In an interview with the Official PlayStation Blog, Rebirth’s director Naoki Hamaguchi explained that players won’t be able to import their leveled-up and super-powerful characters from Remake into the new sequel, suggesting that each entry in the FFVII remake trilogy will be a “standalone game in its own right.”

“Because of this, each game’s balancing is done independently,” explained Hamaguchi. “And a player’s levels and abilities will not carry over from one game to the next.”

While some might be disappointed that they can’t trample through FFVII Rebirth’s enemies and bosses with their OP Cloud and Aerith, this decision makes sense. These remakes are large RPGs of their very own, and trying to design them to support high-level characters would likely be challenging and ruin the overall balance.

But, if you did play Remake, Square Enix has “special bonuses” for you, as confirmed by Hamaguchi. On Square Enix’s official website, the publisher revealed what those bonuses are: Leviathan Summon Materia for folks with Remake save data and Ramuh Summon Materia if you’ve got Intermission save data. Just keep in mind that this save data needs to be on your PS5 when you play Rebirth.

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Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, due out on February 29, will be giving Cait Sith, a cat-like party member from the original Final Fantasy VII, his proper introduction in the Remake timeline. We’ll be getting a lot of face time with our feline friend in the sequel, but that naturally means people are going to be saying his name, so Rebirth will have to deal with a long-simmering fan debate about how you pronounce “Cait Sith.” Now, Square Enix has finally revealed the name’s pronunciation in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, and it’s causing some conflicting emotions among fans.

While the background is obviously different, the name Cait Sith originates from a creature in Celtic mythology. But a lot of fans didn’t realize this when they met the character in the original Final Fantasy VII, which didn’t have voice acting. As such, swaths of the community have pronounced his name the way it looks, but it sounds like Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is taking a hard stance. Square Enix made a post on Twitter (now known as X) saying Cait Sith will be pronounced like “Kate Sihth,” which is more or less how many fans have been saying it, as opposed to using the original Scottish Gaelic pronunciation “Ket Shee.”

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The response to this announcement has been mixed, as you can see in the responses to Square Enix’s tweet. For some players this affirms the way they’ve said Cait Sith’s name for over 20 years. Others argue this is erasing the actual term’s history, which is embedded in an entirely different culture and folklore. The Japanese pronunciation is much closer to the original Gaelic, but English-speaking territories will get the more anglicized pronunciation. In theory, Square Enix’s ruling could have ended a decades-long debate, but instead it seems to have added more logs to the fire.

Even when Final Fantasy VII extended universe works like the Advent Children film gave voices to the characters, they often talked around Cait Sith’s name instead of saying it. In Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII, Cid pronounces Cait Sith like “Kate,” but given this was a spin-off game, it’s likely several fans have never heard this exchange. Here’s the clip of the scene. The name drop happens at the 40-second mark:

Pronunciation debates in Final Fantasy aren’t new, especially pertaining to character and concept names most people read in the early days of the franchise before 2001’s Final Fantasy X gave its characters voices. Even that game still has a raging debate surrounding how to pronounce its protagonist’s name, because you could rename Tidus however you wanted and dialogue was carefully written to never name him out loud. Later spin-off games like the Dissidia franchise and Kingdom Hearts pronounced his name “Tee-dus,” but even Kingdom Hearts II confused the issue by calling him “Tide-us.”

Final Fantasy XVI ran into this as well with protagonist Clive pronouncing series summon mainstay Ifrit like “If-reet,” as opposed to “Eef-rit” in some past iterations. Basically, Final Fantasy fans have been working with inconsistent information on a few fronts, and Cait Sith is just one of a few examples.

While we can debate how to say “Cait Sith” all day, one thing we can all unanimously agree on is that Andrea Rhodea is the best character in the Final Fantasy VII subseries, am I right?

Pre-order Final Fantasy VII Rebirth: Amazon | Best Buy | GameStop

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The immensely popular 1997 role-playing game Final Fantasy VII has been worshiped in its original form, grafted into a similarly admired 2020 remake, and now, developer Square Enix promises a magisterial “rebirth” in a PlayStation 5 exclusive set for February 29, 2024. Like the 2020 remake, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth will act as both an effigy to the original—a breakthrough title for Japanese-made RPGs—and a reinvention of it, with improved graphics and new narrative beats that break from established lore, including a “surprise” during one of the game’s most memorable scenes, developers say.

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After you reach FFVII’s Forgotten Capital as swooshy-haired protagonist Cloud, the game drenches you in ice water and makes you watch as antagonist Sephiroth kills Cloud’s sweetheart Aerith. In the ‘90s, FFVII’s first disc ended here, on this frigid note.

At this week’s Thailand Game Show 2023, and while speaking to Indonesian gaming site Gamebrott, Rebirth director Naoki Hamaguchi issued a message “to all the gamers regarding this ‘you-know-what’ moment” in the Forgotten Capital: “we can confirm that we will give you a ‘big surprise,’” he said, according to a Google translation of the Indonesian text. “So you can look forward to later in the game.”

Hamaguchi, unsurprisingly, didn’t offer up the intricacies or extent of this “surprise,” and declined to engage with any fan theories (though he expressed his appreciation for them, saying “we really accept it and feel happy about the activeness of fans in creating various kinds of theories.”) But if it’s anything like the logical but potent plotline changes Square Enix made to its 2020 FFVII remake, it’ll likely frustrate those long-time fans who want to see their childhood memories faithfully recreated, while thrilling others with its breaks from the familiar timeline that suggest bold new narrative possibilities, all while perhaps leaving FF7 newcomers scratching their heads over what it’s all supposed to mean.

Example: in the ‘90s, FFVII’s arcane ending—protagonist Cloud defeats enemy Sephiroth for the last time, the world is overrun by an incorporeal Lifestream of mint-green energy—was impressive, and its post-credits scene, in which wolf-beast Red XIII runs around a leafy, seemingly uninhabited planet, was mind-blowingly (and, to some people, annoyingly) vague. The 2020 remake respects this history by blowing minds in a similar way, preserving ‘90s ambiguity but introducing fresh details to analyze.

Rebirth—which Hamaguchi tells Gamebrott features even more “extensive exploration” than the original FFVII, but leaves some of its charming features alone, like the minigames at Gold Saucer amusement park—seems set to do the same.