Final Fantasy VII Demo Leak? The First Episode Is Just Around The Corner...

While the majority of us were picking our noses, watching Harry Potter and drinking everything liquidy in the house over the Christmas period, some gaming websites were reporting a supposed Final Fantasy VII demo leak. Yeah, this is real news. Forget about everything else, fool.

• A Q&A With imaginarylab, Creators Of Whirlight – No Time To Trip
• The Best Of Two Worlds In Shin Chan: Shiro And The Coal Town
• Blood Hunting Is Dark And Dangerous, This Summer On PS5
• Age of Defense Review: This Takes Ages
• Minds Beneath Us Review: Data Ghost In The Shell 

It’s a bit of a no-brainer to yours truly as come March 2020, anyone likely to be interested in the remake will have arranged for a pre-order or be buying the game on the day. I’ll risk it and do the latter, but without a doubt, I’ll be getting the Final Fantasy VII remake.

Do we need a demo? Perhaps. It’s a little teaser into what to expect, but as it’s only three months away, I’m sure we could wait for a little. That couldn’t be sooner as some data miners have ripped the code for the demo before it’s even been released on the PlayStation Network. Has the demo even been announced? As of writing (14:50), no.

Do I want to see the demo now? Nah, not really. I can wait. All that will happen is I’ll want the game more and be frustrated that I have to wait another three months. Ignorance is bliss. Then again, Final Fantasy VII is going to be an episodic title so there will be plenty of moments of not knowing what to do until the next episode is available.

Does this mean that it’s digital-only? I hope not. Hopefully, it will be like Hitman when they released all the episodes on disc. However, the leak is kind of the only real news at the moment, and people be getting buzzed, innit? So, I thought I’d sniff around a bit and find out what the big deal is.

The skinny is, a few unsavoury types used spoofed IPs and were able to download the playable Final Fantasy VII demo way before the announcement. A few clips were posted up on the YouTubes and pending that they don’t get taken down, I’ve embedded one below (the first one has already been removed based on a copyright claim by Square Enix. And rightly so. Hmmph… spoil our surprises… Anyway, to contradict that statement, here’s the opener:

I’m fine with this, and it’s about as far as I will go as I want to play and experience the demo for myself without any real spoilers. This is effectively the opening sequence from the original, only tarted up with better graphics and a few tweaks. Hardly a spoiler and no need to be taken down. To some extent, it should get people more excited about the game. It’s a finished product and doesn’t give anything away. In fact, it’s more or less the same as the original back in the late 90s.

Forget about the Final Fantasy VII demo leak and follow developments from the official site.

Some of the other online articles mention about additional assets in the code such as soundtracks, number of chapters and more being available. Personally, I don’t need to know this, nor want to read about it, so I skimmed over that.

In summary, all this hoo-ha is about some techies getting early access to an unannounced demo and some assets which they shouldn’t have. Tsk tsk, security, people. It’s not really news, but it’s the start of the New Year, so it is what it is.

One thing is for sure which I mentioned above; Final Fantasy VII remake will be episodic so even when you do finish the opening sequence, there will be some downtime until the next episode. I sincerely hope this is because the episodes are so epic (correct use of the word) that they couldn’t release as a standalone and that it is neither a) a paywall to make mo’ money or b) the rest of the episodes aren’t finished yet.

Final Fantasy VII remake, the first episode, is out 3rd March 2020.

For my own personal selection of games I’m looking forward to in 2020, read the feature here or go back in time, Marty, and read my current backlog that needs finishing asap.