'Final Fantasy 7 Remake' New Trailer Teases a Devastating Early Scene

Perhaps the most thrilling video game trailer to come out of the 2019 Tokyo Games Show this week is undoubtedly a new look at the upcoming Final Fantasy VII Remake. Along with a first look at the Turks, a few summons, and many new sequences is an early look at one of the most devastating early scenes from the original game when AVALANCHE storms up the Sector 7 Pillar and many of its members die.

Square Enix shared the trailer Wednesday morning on Twitter after its debut at the Tokyo Games Show. At about the 1:20 mark after Tseng speaks directly to Aerith, we see AVALANCHE engaging in a gunfight with Shinra soldiers as they climb up an exposed set of stairs. The clip lasts less than 10 seconds, but based on the original Final Fantasy VII, this takes place rather late in the first section of the game when Shinra, the evil corporation, decides to destroy this tower to drop an entire upper plate of Midgard atop of the Sector 7 slums.

The goal is to destroy the AVALANCHE base, but destroying the plate kills thousands upon thousands of people. In the original version of this scene, characters like Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie lay wounded and dying as you ascend the stairs. Cloud, Barrett, and Tifa barely escape themselves.

Millions of gamers were emotionally scarred by Final Fantasy VII when Sephiroth kills Aerith later in the game, but it’s this much earlier scene while you’re still in Midgar that establishes this world as one with dire consequences. You spend the opening sections of the game as Cloud, an emotionally distant ex-SOLDIER getting paid to help a terrorist organization save the environment by destroying the reactors built by an evil corporation that are draining the planet of its energy.

Even if Cloud doesn’t seem to care about the members of AVALANCHE or its goals, you can’t help but fall in love with the dorky Jessie, the goofy Wedge, and the hotheaded Biggs. They earnestly believe in the cause, and even if it’s a controversial one that puts people in danger, they see it is for the greater good.

With the many expanded scenes being added to the remake, it looks like these minor characters are getting much more significant roles this time around. When we do finally see their deaths with these updated graphics, it could be the single most devastating moment in the whole game. (Aerith’s death won’t happen until a later installment.)

This new Final Fantasy VII Remake trailer is enough to make any fan get even more excited for the game. It looks stunning, exciting, and totally surprising given all the enhancements and additions to the game’s story — but we also have to prepare for the inevitable emotional devastation, especially when the trailer ends on a shot of Sector 7 as a huge pile of rubble.

Final Fantasy VII Remake, or at least the first part anyway, will be released on the PlayStation 4 March 3, 2020.