Final Fantasy VII Remake and Rebirth Story So Far

0:34 Spoiler warning: this page tells the whole plot of Final Fantasy VII Remake, INTERmission and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, including both endings. In short: Remake (2020) follows the rebels of Avalanche fighting the Shinra Electric Power Company in the city of Midgar and ends with Cloud and his friends defeating the Whispers, the "arbiters of fate", and stepping into an unwritten future; Rebirth (2024) chases Sephiroth across the world and ends at the Forgotten Capital with Aerith killed by his sword, her spirit still speaking to Cloud, and other realities, including one where Zack survived, pulling at the party's own. Square Enix's official recap opens the same way this page does: Shinra "drained the planet of its very essence, the Lifestream", and Avalanche rose up in her defense. Revelation's own story is on Final Fantasy VII Revelation Story.

Quick facts

Sources: Square Enix's "The Story So Far" video, Nov 17, 2023; IGN's "7 Biggest Story Changes in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth", Mar 2, 2024; IGN's Second-Take Preview of Revelation, Sep 18, 2026 (chapter counts).

What happens in Final Fantasy VII Remake?

1:46 Cloud Strife, an ex-SOLDIER hired by Barret's Avalanche cell, helps blow up Mako Reactor 1 and meets Aerith, a flower seller who offers him a yellow flower "said to symbolize reunion". When Avalanche hits Reactor 5, Shinra is ready: the company drops the Sector 7 plate on the slums, kills thousands and blames Avalanche. Biggs, Wedge and Jessie fall with it, as far as the party knows.

2:14 Shinra takes Aerith because she is the last of the Cetra, the planet's ancient stewards, and only she could lead them to the "promised land". The party storms the Shinra Building to free her and picks up Red XIII, who narrates Square Enix's recap. There they come face to face with Sephiroth, a war hero thought dead, who takes Jenova's body and kills President Shinra; his son Rufus takes over the company.

10:43 The biggest change from 1997 is the Whispers, hooded ghosts that appear whenever events stray from the original plot. GameSpot's Feb 21, 2024 recap explains them: they made Jessie sprain her ankle, stopped Cloud from finishing Reno and revived Barret after Sephiroth ran him through, all to push the story back onto its "destined track".

4:03 On the highway out of Midgar, Aerith warns that this is "destiny's crossroads". The party fights through the Whispers' Harbinger, and Cloud brings his blade down on Sephiroth: "the shackles of destiny broken", they leave Midgar for "a world of boundless freedom".

15:07 The ending's last shots show what that freedom changed: Biggs, who died in 1997, alive, and Zack Fair, whose death before the original game began, surviving his last stand. That Zack, in a world apart from Cloud's, is the seed of everything strange in Rebirth.

What happens in INTERmission?

15:35 INTERmission, the episode added in Remake Intergrade, runs alongside the middle of Remake. Yuffie, daughter of Wutai's leader, sneaks into Midgar with Sonon to steal Shinra's materia. The materia turns out to be useless, Sonon is killed by Nero the Sable, and Yuffie escapes vowing revenge on Shinra and to find warriors who share it. A last scene shows Zack arriving at the Sector 5 church, looking for Aerith. Wutai's grudge against Shinra carries straight into Revelation's Chapter 4 (Wutai).

What happens in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth?

5:46 Rebirth opens with a flashback to the tragedy at Nibelheim, Cloud and Tifa's hometown, where Sephiroth burned the village five years earlier, and then sends the party across six open regions after him. IGN's Michael Higham, reviewing it on Feb 22, 2024, found that the story "takes a while" to come into focus among the side activities, but called it heart-wrenching once it does.

2:28 New companions arrive differently from 1997, as IGN's Mar 2, 2024 video on Rebirth's changes lays out. Yuffie washes up at Junon Harbor, out to assassinate Rufus during his parade. Cid never takes the party to Rocket Town: he is a pilot for hire at Gongaga's airfield who joins after learning Aerith's mother Ifalna had died. Cait Sith joins much as he did in the original.

3:36 Vincent is still in the Shinra Mansion basement at Nibelheim, but this time he turns into the Galian Beast to stop the party entering Hojo's old lab, then comes along because of his "unfinished business" with Sephiroth. He is not playable in Rebirth; Revelation is the first game in the series to make him a full party member (Vincent Valentine in Final Fantasy VII Revelation).

0:40 The Black Materia, which can summon Meteor, gets an origin: it was made by the Gi, an undead tribe under Cosmo Canyon who cannot return to the Lifestream, out of pain and spite, and the Cetra stole it and sealed it in the Temple of the Ancients. The party agrees to recover it only to keep it from the Gi and from Sephiroth.

4:30 Sephiroth's visions turn Cloud against Tifa. At the Gongaga reactor Cloud, believing she is a copy made by Jenova, attacks her; she falls into the mako lake, is swallowed by a Weapon and sees childhood memories inside it before it returns her. That Weapon's bond with Tifa is one reason creators expect the Weapons to matter in Revelation (Final Fantasy VII Revelation Weapons).

7:35 Sephiroth's plan grows beyond 1997's. He still wants godhood through the Lifestream, but "reunion" now means bringing many worlds together, "a confluence of worlds and emotions", as IGN explains it. Rebirth's launch trailer uses the same word: "The reunion, when worlds merge."

10:38 Wutai becomes a bigger thread. A ceasefire holds between Wutai and Shinra until Glenn Lodbrok, a former SOLDIER who defected to Wutai, tries to restart the war and blames the Weapons on Shinra. The finale reveals Glenn as Sephiroth's puppet, the war a way to keep Rufus busy while Sephiroth reaches the promised land. Glenn is back in Revelation's Chapter 4.

How does Final Fantasy VII Rebirth end?

8:28 At the Forgotten Capital, Aerith is killed by Sephiroth's sword, as in 1997. Rebirth then changes how it is shown: her spirit lives on and talks directly to Cloud, though the rest of the party cannot see her, and in the last scene she promises Cloud she will stop Meteor, "I'll put everything I've got into my prayers." In a new final chapter Cloud also visits another reality where an Aerith with a working White Materia gives it to him, restoring the power to call Holy that the Whispers had drained.

9:19 Zack, meanwhile, lives on in other worlds. In the final battle the Zack of another world wonders whether worlds that "unite and part" can reunite a second time; IGN reads it as hope that his reality will join one where he, Aerith and Cloud are well.

8:36 Not everyone found the ending clear. IGN's review called the conclusion "both convoluted and undefined", while praising the quieter new scenes about letting go. Revelation's reveal trailer suggests the third game keeps those threads: in its last shot, Whispers, both the black ones from Remake and the white ones from Rebirth, surround Cloud, as Final Fantasy Union's Jun 7, 2026 breakdown points out.

What changed from the 1997 Final Fantasy VII?

A table we assembled from the recaps and IGN's video, for readers who know the original:

Where does Revelation pick up?

0:06 Revelation continues after the Forgotten Capital. Square Enix says the party is "grieving a beloved ally", Sephiroth is "nearing godhood" and Meteor is coming (Square Enix, Sep 3, 2026). The Tokyo Game Show demo of Sep 2026 opened in the Whirlwind Maze on the way to the North Crater, which matches the original's order of events. Everything after that is on Final Fantasy VII Revelation Story.

What we think

We think a newcomer can follow Revelation without the first two games, but not its ending: it rests on two things only Remake and Rebirth set up, the Whispers' war over "destiny" and Zack's other world. In our view the 20 minutes of the two official recaps are the minimum, and this page's table is what a player of the 1997 game needs most. We also expect Square Enix to post an official recap of Rebirth in the weeks before Apr 8, 2027, as it posted one for Remake three months before Rebirth came out.

Frequently asked questions

Does Aerith die in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth?

Yes. Sephiroth kills her at the Forgotten Capital, as in 1997, but her spirit keeps talking to Cloud, and she promises to stop Meteor.

Is Zack alive in Rebirth?

In other worlds, yes. Remake's ending let him survive his last stand in a reality separate from Cloud's, and Rebirth shows several versions of him. In the party's own world he died before the story began.

What are the Whispers?

Ghost-like "arbiters of fate" that appear when events stray from the 1997 story and push them back. The party defeats them at the end of Remake; Rebirth adds white Whispers.

Is there an official recap?

Square Enix posted "The Story So Far" on Nov 17, 2023 and PlayStation a shorter "Brief Recap" on Jan 25, 2024, both covering Remake.

Which games do I need before Revelation?

Remake Intergrade (with INTERmission) and Rebirth. They are sold together as a Twin Pack and in the Trilogy Edition; see Final Fantasy VII Games in Order and Final Fantasy VII Revelation Editions and Price.

Sources

• FINAL FANTASY, Nov 17, 2023: FINAL FANTASY VII REBIRTH - The Story So Far
• PlayStation, Jan 25, 2024: Final Fantasy VII Remake - A Brief Recap of The Story So Far
• GameSpot, Feb 21, 2024: Final Fantasy 7 Remake Full Story Recap
• IGN, Feb 22, 2024: Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth Review
• IGN, Mar 2, 2024: 7 Biggest Story Changes in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth
• FINAL FANTASY, Feb 29, 2024: FINAL FANTASY VII REBIRTH - Launch Trailer
• Square Enix, Sep 3, 2026: FINAL FANTASY VII REVELATION releases April 8, 2027 on physical and digital
• Final Fantasy Union, Jun 7, 2026: We Went Frame-By-Frame Through The FINAL FANTASY 7 REVELATION Trailer