Square Enix has shared a new trailer for Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth at The Game Awards, which features a first look at a few characters and a new theme song titled “No Promises to Keep.”
Just like Final Fantasy 7 Remake‘s theme song, this one has been composed by the legendary Nobuo Uematsu, with the vocals performed by Loren Allred. If you’ve not heard of her, she’s best known for her song “Never Enough,” which featured in 2017’s The Greatest Showman musical and became a platinum-selling single.
The real draw of the trailer, though, is the new glimpses at the story and characters. Aside from showing off a bit more of Vincent Valentine, we also get our first look at Cid Highwind, another party member from the original game. While he looks set to join the main party, expressing an eagerness to help Aerith, there’s no sign of him being playable. He’s likely in the same situation as Vincent and will be an AI party member.
Dyne, a pivotal character from Barret’s backstory, makes a brief appearance too, but perhaps the most intriguing scenes from the trailer involve Zack. With him surviving his destined death in what is theorized to be a new timeline, he gets to interact with characters he never met before, including Biggs (who has also somehow cheated death) and Barret’s adopted daughter Marlene. What’s more, Zack will get to reunite with Aerith except she appears to be comatose, with Marlene warning that someone is looking to kill her.
Other highlights include new summons such as Phoenix and Titan, what looks like a far more detailed and expanded version of the stage play involving the entire party (Aerith even gets to sing the new theme song), and a shot of Aerith praying as black feathers fall around her. I’m going to quickly touch upon spoilers in the next paragraph so stop reading if you wish to avoid them.
This final shot is clearly meant to be right before Aerith’s death at Sephiroth’s hands in the original game, teasing that Cloud and friends will fail to avert it a second time. Unless that’s what Square Enix wants us to think. It’s such a deliberate shot that it almost comes across like a red herring meant to trick fans into thinking things will play out the same. Regardless, this new ambiguity surrounding one of the most famous deaths in video games only makes Rebirth more exciting.
