Final Fantasy VII Revelation Adds Auto-Level & Omits Launch Hard Mode

TGS revealed a lot of new details on Final Fantasy VII Revelations, and the hands-on demo came with plenty of comments from director Naoki Hamaguchi. Some of it changes how you might approach the game, so it's worth going through everything in order.

Starting with the auto-level feature. According to Hamaguchi, at a certain point in the game you'll get a prompt offering to raise your party to the story's recommended level. The idea comes from Rebirth, where plenty of players who ignored the side content ended up underleveled and had a rough time.

Auto-leveling is just one piece of a bigger push to fit every playstyle.

The team wants people who would rather skip the open world to have something closer to Remake's linear, story-focused feel. So if you only care about the main story, you can accept the boost and move on. Options like this make Final Fantasy VII Revelation reachable for people who don't have time to clear every side activity, and that's a good thing.

Plenty of players would never skip the side content, but everyone has their own preferences, and it's a fair addition as long as the game still puts up a real fight. Speaking of challenge, it looks like Final Fantasy VII Revelationwon't include a Hard Mode.

An insider who spoke with the team says there's no Hard Mode in New Game Plus in the final release, and that the developers are putting the tougher content into the post-game instead. Dynamic Mode is still there if you want a tougher combat challenge. Nothing official has come from the development team yet, but the insider likely wouldn't have said it without a reason to.

This has sparked a lot of talk in the Final Fantasy community, especially among people who enjoyed the harder options in Remake and Rebirth. A Hard Mode would be nice, but it isn't essential to enjoying the game as long as the fights still test you. The Weapons are the ones to watch here. They were tough in the original, and the hope is that they hit just as hard this time, even though you now have countless ways to take bosses down easily.

A patch or update could also add a tougher difficulty option later.

On the performance side, Hamaguchi says PS5 Pro is one of the recommended ways to play Final Fantasy VII Revelation. Using PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR), the console offers a mode that delivers 4K image quality at 60 frames per second. If you don't have a PC that can run the game at full strength but you do own a PS5 Pro, this is a strong way to get the sharpest picture with smooth gameplay.

The standard PS5 has a few options too. Graphics Mode runs at 4K and 30 fps, while Performance Sharp and Performance Smooth both target 60 fps. It's hard to say how good those look right now. Rebirth looked soft and smeared at launch, so the hope is that this one looks noticeably cleaner. XBOX Series X should line up closely with the PS5 options, so you can expect a similar set of choices there.

Naoki Hamaguchi also says you won't see everything in Final Fantasy VII Revelation in a single run. The game has multiple objectives, outcomes, and discoveries, but Chapter Select will be available once you finish the story, just like in Remake and Rebirth. That means you don't have to restart from level one to explore the other possibilities. The team wants you to try different paths in a way that respects your time and how you like to play.

This isn't new, since both earlier games had it, so it makes sense for the finale to include it. Not everyone has endless free time, and replaying a game that could run around 100 hours just isn't realistic for most people, so Chapter Select letting you jump back in without starting over is a big plus.

The director describes the content as wide-ranging, much like Rebirth, but this time some elements shift based on your choices, so the journey feels more personal.

After the reaction to Rebirth, the team reworked things like rewards and gameplay loops to make exploring the open world more satisfying. Those comments came after an interview in which he claimed the game could take 100 hours to finish and that Hamaguchi himself has beaten it 46 times. That's a huge amount of content, assuming it's aimed at completionists.

How much value that adds depends on what fills those hours. If it's mostly fetch quests and collecting dozens of the same object, it won't mean much. Stories, side quests, and anything that pulls you further into the world and adds to the lore are far more appealing. Since Hamaguchi says multiple playthroughs are needed to see it all, and Chapter Select will be available, there's plenty of reason to go back in.

If you remember the original, it had the Scarlet slap-fight and snowboarding mini-games. Both are confirmed for Final Fantasy VII Revelation, though they'll be framed differently based on how the demo introduced them. Hamaguchi says they aren't standalone mini-games; they're built into the story and designed to move you emotionally.

He wouldn't say where they show up, which is probably for the best since the team has already shown a lot and wants to leave some surprises. When asked how many characters will be in the party, Hamaguchi said several factors are involved, and he couldn't give an answer. That leaves room for some guessing.

Zack is almost certainly playable, and that may already be confirmed.

Aerith could also return in some form. She fought alongside the party at the end of Rebirth despite being dead, so a spiritual appearance near the end of Final Fantasy VII Revelation wouldn't be a stretch. She might fight beside the group or help in another way.

Zack will likely be part of the final fight too, and maybe the two of them battle together on another plane where you get to play as them. That's speculation, but it could very well happen.

Guidance is another area that changed after feedback. Hamaguchi says the game has more on-screen guidance than Rebirth so people unfamiliar with open-world games don't get lost, and following it lets the world open up gradually. Experienced open-world players told the team it can feel too strong, and a few players who've tried the game said the interruptions were constant.

Because of that, the team is considering options that let you customize how guidance is shown. Giving players a toggle is the right call, since some want a heavily guided experience and others don't, and it should make a real difference once reviews arrive.

As for design, Hamaguchi says Rebirth opened up the adventure into an open world.

This entry adds verticality, which he calls a spatial open-world experience in practice; that means boarding the Highwind, dropping down and heading back up, along with a reworked map and underwater areas. Moving from the linear structure of Remake to the open world of Rebirth, and now to flying and piloting a submarine, gives Final Fantasy VII Revelation a much greater sense of scale.

Finally, there's the Final Fantasy VII Revelation DLC. Naoki Hamaguchi says the team is preparing brand-new gameplay experiences that let you dive deeper into Sephiroth and Vincent after the main story ends. The details aren't new, but the wording stands out.

Talking about new gameplay experiences suggests the DLC could work differently from the base game, so you might not simply control Vincent or Sephiroth with the standard Materia setup. The developers may build separate mechanics or combat loops for each. That's speculation, but it would make the DLC more appealing.

Final Fantasy XV did something similar with its episodes for Ignis, Gladiolus, and Prompto, which played so differently that they felt like standalone games, and something like that could be what the team has in mind. That's everything from the TGS demo and the interviews so far. Whether you care about the story, the challenge, or the DLC, Final Fantasy VII Revelation is clearly aiming big.