FF7 Rebirth's Map Compared To The Original Final Fantasy 7's Gaia

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth takes on the daunting task of updating Gaia for modern systems, and the differences in its map reveal some key changes.

Summary

• FF7 Rebirth 's map has larger areas to explore than the original with a modern open-world approach.
• Some areas of the original map aren't included, but key exclusions will appear in the next game.
• The world works similarly to FF7 Remake 's approach, with a 1:1 scale that the original game lacked.

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is obviously an expansive adventure, but it can be hard to tell at a glance just how big its version of the world of Gaia is compared to the presentation in the original game. The Final Fantasy series has never been lacking in ambition, and Final Fantasy 7 was one of the grandest experiences in scale that the PlayStation had to offer. The game took up a whopping four discs, and although much of that space was dedicated to its cutscenes, the world certainly felt like it earned the disc count.

The road to FF7 Rebirth was paved by FF7 Remake, which showed just how much room there still was to expand the original game. By expanding the opening Midgar segment into an entire game of its own, Remake was able to explore iconic locations and characters in the city in significantly more detail. The scope of this task pales in comparison to the one that falls on FF7 Rebirth, however, which has to translate the vast world outside Midgar with the fidelity and breadth that's expected on modern systems.

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FF7 Rebirth's Map Is Bigger Than The Original's Gaia - Mostly

Fans of Final Fantasy 7 will probably be happy to see that FF7 Rebirth is loyal overall to the map of the original game, although it's not without its changes. The major landmasses remain intact and similar in shape, although the distortion of a different approach to mapping them on a globe can make them look more changed at first glance. From the grasslands east of Midgar to the rocky, barren Cosmo Canyon Region, FF7 Rebirth has rendered the world of Gaia faithfully.

There are, however, some notable exceptions. The most obvious change is that Wutai doesn't appear on the map, as Yuffie's homeland doesn't make the cut for FF7 Rebirth's story coverage. This isn't an excision, since it should still appear in the final game of the remake trilogy, but it does mean that players won't get to explore that culture for some time yet. Similarly, some smaller islands that scatter the edges of the map aren't in FF7 Rebirth, although not all of them contained any significant story content in the original game.

You Have To Play INTERmission Before FF7 Rebirth

The big difference is the scale of the map, which is significantly bigger thanks to its modern open-world approach. Although it was possible to freely explore the full map of the original FF7 (well, at least with some special Chocobos), it used a traditional overworld approach. Outside of major locations and battles, the world was rendered in a miniature scale, where a model of Cloud Strife or an airship could appear as big as a town. In FF7 Rebirth, everything is built to scale with the actual locations, dwarfing the classic map in exploration.

How The World Of Gaia Works In FF7 Rebirth

The easiest way to compare the overall scale is to think of it as an expanded version of FF7 Remake's approach to Midgar. Individual buildings and areas are usually roughly matched to their original size but placed within a more cohesive whole. Enemies are physically scattered about rather than popping up as random encounters, with seamless transitions into battle. FF7 Rebirth's open world also resembles Remake's Midgar in the fact that it does guide and corral players, so no one should expect to find the immediate unbounded exploration of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild here.

In an interview with Screen Rant, FF7 Rebirth director Naoki Hamaguchi spoke about the team's intent to " provide a very similar experience " to the way that the original FF7 opened up more of the world as it progressed.

Another notable difference between the FF7 Remake map and the original is the choice to label specific regions, which helps break up the content of the open world into more meaningful individual chunks. Each region has a certain sampling of side content to complete, so smaller checklists can be finished off one at a time to maintain a consistent sense of progress. This material ranges from a variety of well-developed minigames (a staple feature of the original FF7) to narrative quests, once again building on the formula established in FF7 Remake.

It's worth noting that the implied size of the world in FF7 Rebirth is somewhat downscaled from the original, as the huge spot taken up by Midgar on the map clearly represents. In practice, however, the actual time it takes to travel from location to location is obviously significantly higher, and the areas between major spots take on significantly more detailed life. Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth may not be a completely literal translation of the original FF7 map, but it's definitely bigger as an explorable world, and it's kept all the major essentials intact.

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth

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