Cover Art Chronicles: Final Fantasy VII Remake’s Cover Is Misleading AND More Accurate

Kotaku writer Jason Schreier caused a minor stir when he claimed that Final Fantasy VII Remake’s box art is misleading. The intention of the just-revealed final cover art is to invoke feelings of nostalgia for the original game’s box art, with protagonist Cloud Strife clutching the hilt of his sword while glancing up at the nefarious Shinra Corporation building. The cover fits the content the game will include better than the original does, but upon thinking about it harder, Schreier’s right. In fact, the whole name is misleading.

When Final Fantasy VII Remake was first announced in June 2015, fans interpreted this to mean Square Enix was remaking the whole experience. The name didn’t imply otherwise, after all. That’s why it came as a shock when, in December 2015, the company confirmed that the game will be split into multiple parts. This snafu could have been forgiven if the “Final Fantasy VII Remake” name was a temporary title that could be applied to the entire project in its early marketing stage, but that’s not the case. When the game resurfaced in May of this year after disappearing from the public eye for years, it did so with the same name. You can perhaps see how this can be misleading.

By extension, the cover is also misleading. Anyone who looks at it and compares it to the original cover its referencing could easily think this package will contain that whole experience, even though it won’t have anywhere near that. FFVII Remake will only contain the Midgar aspects of the original, which only consisted of around five hours of the game. This section will be greatly expanded for the new game and will feel like a full experience, but it won’t contain the entire story from the original PSOne game.

Interestingly, the new cover more accurately portrays this version’s content. The original cover also included Cloud observing Shinra, even though the megacorp is only the central villain for the first few hours — though they still remain a villainous organization on the side following the Midgar section. Meanwhile, this entire Remake episode will tell an expanded story of the battle featuring the main characters against Shinra in Midgar, so it works better. But the above issues still apply. This could have been avoided if Square Enix provided some kind of subtitle on the name to indicate how this will only be the first episode of who-knows-how-many (really, not even Square Enix knows how long this will be), to prevent confusion.

There are two possible reasons Square Enix went this route, outside channeling nostalgia. It’s possible they believe the entire audience for this game will be informed enough to know that consumers will only be getting the first episode of the FFVII Remake saga when they purchase this. I’m not sure about this. The logic would apply if this was part of a franchise with a small-but-dedicated audience that reads entirely too much gaming news online. That doesn’t describe Final Fantasy’s audience, which still has a good comparatively “casual” consumer base. Some vocal people who purchase this will be in for a rude awakening upon discovering that this won’t be a remake of the full game, even if the Midgar section is long enough to feel like a fulfilling standalone experience.

On the other hand, maybe that’s the point. The cynical perspective here suggests that Square Enix wants people to think this is the full game, and will have the money of those uninformed before they realize what it actually is. The ads that will air alongside the game’s release early next year likely won’t indicate how this is the first episode in what will be an epic saga, like the current trailers. Most will know what this is before purchasing it, but everyone will not.

Another key question is what they’ll choose for the cover in the next episode, a topic I lightly discussed with fellow Damage Control writers Angela Moseley and Drew Young in our Discord channel (linked on the side with all of our social media networks). I half-jokingly mentioned the chance of them using that moment from the end of Final Fantasy VII’s first disc — you know what I’m talking about (and if you don’t and want to go in to this remake fresh, keep it that way). Drew, however, guessed that it will reference the art featuring Aerith looking at the Highwind airship, so good a guess that I’m hitting myself for not thinking of it first. The image of Sephiroth surrounded by fire is also a good candidate, given what the next installment will focus on.

Drew’s guess is better than mine because there’s a good chance the second episode may not even go as far as that key moment, given how reportedly expanded this first episode of the Remake will be. It will be a while before we find out who’s right, given that producer Yoshinori Kitase admitted during E3 2019 three months ago that the team was still in the process of scoping the next part.

The box art for this first FFVII Remake part was a good choice, but it would have been better if the name was given a subtitle to not make it misleading. Hopefully most consumers who purchase it know what they’re getting. The game will release for PlayStation 4 on March 3rd worldwide.

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