Final Fantasy 7 Revelation: Everything to Remember Before the Remake Trilogy Finale

Warning: major spoilers for Final Fantasy 7 Remake, Episode Intermission, and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth follow.

Final Fantasy 7 Revelation is set to bring Square Enix's ambitious Remake trilogy to its conclusion on April 8, 2027. The project began as a modern retelling of the 1997 PlayStation RPG, but it has steadily become something more complicated: a new version of Cloud Strife's story that knowingly collides with the original game's events, its wider Compilation history, and multiple possible realities.

For players who have spent years away from Midgar, or who want the essentials in one place before Revelation arrives, the important takeaway is simple. Cloud and his allies are still trying to stop Sephiroth and protect the Planet. But after defying fate itself, the outcome is no longer guaranteed to follow the familiar path. Aerith's fate, Zack Fair's survival, the nature of the Whispers, and Sephiroth's ambitions have all made the final chapter far less predictable.

Final Fantasy 7 Remake: Midgar and the first break from destiny

Final Fantasy 7 Remake opens in Midgar, the oppressive industrial city ruled by the Shinra Electric Power Company. Shinra extracts Mako energy from the Planet, with the process effectively draining the world's spiritual life force. The company presents itself as civilization's engine, but the people fighting it see an institution willing to sacrifice both lives and the environment for power.

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Cloud Strife begins the story as a mercenary and former member of SOLDIER, Shinra's elite military force. He accepts work from Barret Wallace and his Avalanche cell, a group determined to disrupt Shinra's Mako operations by destroying reactors. Their opening operation targets Mako Reactor 1.

That mission immediately signals that this retelling is not a scene-for-scene recreation. Avalanche's bomb is not solely responsible for the catastrophe that follows; President Shinra escalates the disaster, making the explosion far more devastating. It is an early indication that Shinra's cruelty will be more direct, while the consequences faced by Avalanche become murkier.

Cloud joins the group for a second assault on Mako Reactor 5, alongside Barret and his childhood friend Tifa Lockhart. In the space between those missions, the game expands the cast and deepens the stakes. Jessie receives a more substantial personal history, including the loss of her father to Mako poisoning. Cloud starts experiencing disturbing visions involving Sephiroth. And he meets Aerith Gainsborough, the flower seller whose connection to the Planet soon becomes central to everything.

Cloud's meeting with Aerith is repeatedly interrupted by ghostlike entities later called the Whispers. Initially, their motives are unclear. They interfere at moments that feel strangely specific, preventing certain people from dying or ensuring particular meetings take place. Their purpose eventually becomes one of the trilogy's defining revelations.

The collapse of Sector 7

After the Reactor 5 mission goes wrong, Cloud is separated from Avalanche and falls into Aerith's church in the Sector 5 slums. Aerith is being pursued by the Turks, Shinra's covert operatives, but she accompanies Cloud as he works his way back toward Sector 7.

On the way, the pair discover that Tifa has been taken to Don Corneo's mansion in Wall Market. Cloud and Aerith infiltrate the manor to rescue her, only to learn that Shinra plans to destroy Sector 7 by dropping the huge upper-city plate onto the slums beneath it. The goal is to wipe out Avalanche, but Shinra is fully prepared to murder countless civilians to do it.

Cloud, Tifa, Barret, and their allies cannot stop the plate from falling. Sector 7 is devastated, and Avalanche members Biggs and Jessie are believed to have died. Aerith allows Shinra to capture her in exchange for the safety of Marlene, Barret's daughter.

The rescue mission at Shinra Headquarters reveals why Aerith matters so much to the company. She is the last known descendant of the Cetra, or Ancients, a people with a deep spiritual link to the Lifestream. Shinra wants to use her knowledge to locate the Promised Land, a place it believes is rich in Mako.

While infiltrating the building, the party rescues Red XIII, a beastlike captive subjected to Hojo's experiments. Sephiroth kills President Shinra, leaving his son Rufus to take control. Cloud, Barret, Tifa, Aerith, and Red XIII escape Midgar, but not before confronting Sephiroth and the Whispers at the city's edge.

What the Whispers changed

Red XIII explains that the Whispers act as guardians of destiny. Their intervention preserves the events that are supposed to happen, particularly those tied to the original Final Fantasy 7. They save Barret from what appears to be a fatal wound, keep Cloud from abandoning key missions, and prevent other deviations that could send history down a different road.

At the end of Remake, the party fights against this system of predetermined fate. They win, effectively opening the possibility that the story no longer has to reach the same destination as the 1997 game.

The aftermath introduces even bigger questions. Biggs and Jessie appear to have survived in another reality. More dramatically, Zack Fair is shown surviving the Shinra attack that killed him in the original continuity and in Crisis Core. Zack carries an injured Cloud toward Midgar, creating an alternate outcome with enormous implications for Cloud, Aerith, and the entire timeline.

Episode Intermission: Yuffie's mission and Deepground's return

Episode Intermission takes place around the events of Remake and follows Yuffie Kisaragi. The young Wutai ninja enters Midgar on behalf of Wutai's interim government, intending to steal Shinra's supposed Ultimate Materia. She is aided by Sonon and by a local Avalanche faction.

This chapter establishes that Barret's group is viewed as a radical splinter movement rather than the whole of Avalanche. It also strengthens the political tension between Shinra and Wutai, a conflict that becomes much more important in Rebirth.

Yuffie and Sonon break into a laboratory below Shinra Headquarters, where they face Scarlet, Shinra's weapons chief, and Deepground. The secret military organization is a major element from the wider Final Fantasy 7 universe, and Nero the Sable appears as one of its leaders. The mission fails to uncover any Ultimate Materia, and Sonon dies protecting Yuffie's escape. His loss leaves Yuffie more determined than ever to find allies capable of bringing Shinra down.

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth: a wider world and a fractured reality

Rebirth begins by returning to Zack's divergent world. There, Avalanche's members have been injured or captured, Aerith is comatose, and Zack brings her and Cloud to Elmyra's home. The situation is bleak: the Planet's Mako appears depleted, and people are preparing for the world's end.

In Cloud's primary reality, the party has left Midgar and reaches Kalm. Cloud recounts the Nibelheim incident from five years earlier, when he and Sephiroth were sent to investigate a reactor in Cloud's hometown. Sephiroth learned that he had been created using cells from Jenova, an extraterrestrial life-form, and suffered a catastrophic mental collapse. He massacred Nibelheim and returned to the reactor to reclaim what he understood to be his mother.

Cloud and his friends pursue Sephiroth by following the black-robed former Shinra test subjects. Their journey covers much of the world beyond Midgar: Junon, Costa del Sol, Corel, the Gold Saucer, Gongaga, Cosmo Canyon, and a strangely reconstructed Nibelheim. Each location adds context to the party. Barret confronts the tragedy associated with Corel's reactor. Red XIII reveals that his true name is Nanaki and that, despite his mature voice, he is developmentally comparable to a human teenager. Aerith and Tifa find rare moments of friendship and relief amid the escalating crisis.

Yuffie joins the group, as do Cait Sith, pilot Cid Highwind, and Vincent Valentine, the former Turk with a monstrous transformation. Cid and Vincent accompany the party but are not playable in Rebirth.

Meanwhile, massive guardians known as Weapons emerge as part of the Planet's defenses. The Whispers also return in opposing forms: white Whispers support the Planet, while black Whispers aid Sephiroth.

Sephiroth's Reunion and Aerith's fate

The central threat becomes clearer as the party learns of Sephiroth's plan. He wants the Black Materia, which can summon Meteor and threaten the Planet on a catastrophic scale. But his larger objective is no longer limited to destroying the world or taking command of the Lifestream. Sephiroth intends to force alternate realities together through a Reunion, creating a merged paradise over which he can rule.

The race for the Black Materia leads to the Temple of the Ancients as Wutai openly declares war on Shinra. Cloud's group secures the Materia, but Sephiroth exerts control over Cloud and forces him to hand it over. Aerith then goes alone to the Forgotten Capital, hoping to call upon the Planet for help.

At the ancient Cetran city, the trilogy delivers its most emotionally charged departure and convergence with the original story. The Whispers try to force Cloud to kill Aerith with his Buster Sword, but he resists. Sephiroth descends to strike her himself. Cloud appears to block him and disarm him, yet a distortion in reality means Sephiroth still succeeds in killing Aerith. Her White Materia falls into the water.

The rest of the party mourns Aerith and fights Jenova, but Cloud experiences events differently. He can still see Aerith, suggesting that his perspective may be tied to another reality--or that his already fragile mind is struggling to process the loss.

Zack's story becomes increasingly splintered as well. Different decisions produce different threads, including one involving a surviving Biggs. Zack ultimately confronts Sephiroth, while Cloud joins him briefly across realities. An alternate Aerith also arrives to aid Cloud during the climactic fight. Sephiroth is forced back, but not defeated.

Where Revelation begins

By the end of Rebirth, the party leaves aboard Cid's Tiny Bronco to continue the pursuit of Sephiroth. Cloud has the Black Materia again and fuses it into the Buster Sword. He alone can see a black rift in the sky. Aerith, visible to Cloud but absent from the others' experience, remains behind as he promises to stop Sephiroth.

That leaves Final Fantasy 7 Revelation with several enormous questions. Is Aerith truly gone in Cloud's world, and what role can her alternate presence play? Can Zack's fractured realities be saved or reconciled? What does Sephiroth's Reunion mean for the Planet and its many timelines? And after the party destroyed the arbiters of fate, how much of the original Final Fantasy 7 ending still applies?

Revelation will close a story that began with resistance against Shinra's Mako reactors, but its final conflict now reaches far beyond Midgar. Cloud must contend with Sephiroth, the Black Materia, the Lifestream, his own unstable understanding of reality, and a future that no longer belongs to fate alone.