The past month has seen tons of new information about the upcoming Final Fantasy Rebirth, with new details about side content and the expanded role of Sephiroth being provided by Game Informer’s cover story about the game. Now, in another preview from Game Informer, Rebirth’s developers have spoken about an expanded section of the game that proved to be a tear-jerker.
The scene in question takes place in the Corel Prison section of the game, and involves the character Dyne, Barrett’s childhood friend and the biological father of his foster daughter who he thought was long dead. It’s a small section of the original game, but the developers promise that it has been made much more notable this time around.
“When the remake project was first decided, we already felt that if we were going to take on this series, it’s imperative that we depict the characters much more deeply and go into more depth in approaching them,” said creative director Tetsuya Nomura. “Not only Aerith’s arc for Rebirth, but even other characters like Dyne, for example, I really wanted to show in a more detailed way for Rebirth. There’s a scene where I truly want to cry when I see it.”
“Within Rebirth, the characters that we have all come to know and love are depicted quite fully and in-depth,” he continued. He then referenced the character’s relatively small role in the original game, saying “for me, that character from Corel Prison was quite memorable. I’m not sure if players remember him, but everywhere players go, there will be characters like that who we remember from the original game that are depicted in more detail.”
The decision to expand the roles of minor characters appears to be based in the philosophy that every character is someone’s favorite, even if they are not memorable to everyone. However, this was almost not the case.
When the scene was brought up to producer Yoshinori Kitase, he felt that it was one that could be cut from the game, but changed his mind after hearing the creative team’s passion for the character. “When you see it all come together, the final product and that scene – especially the Dyne scene – I think, ‘Wow, this is amazing!’ It’s crying-worthy. I feel glad it’s in there,” Kitase said.
Though no more of the section has been shown off, players will be able to experience it for themselves when Final Fantasy VII Rebirth releases on February 29 for the PlayStation 5.