Square Enix Releases Final Fantasy 7's Opening Movie

Square Enix treated its Final Fantasy fans to yet another look at the remake of Final Fantasy VII on Friday, this one much more cinematic than the info dumps and screenshots released earlier in the week. The new video released by the publisher is the opening cinematic players will see when they start up the game. Those who never played the first game will get notice the movie sets the tone for the game and gives a brief introduction to key characters while those who played the original will find some of the scenes familiar.

The opening movie for Final Fantasy VII's remake can be seen below after it was released Friday morning. It opens with some picturesque scenes of desert areas relatively untouched by people before transitioning to the much more industrial side of Midgar where people have built their lives around massive towers, pipes, and machines.

Aerith is one of the first main characters we see in the cinematic just before things gradually begin picking up as they have in past Final Fantasy VII trailers. It continues until we're met with a shot of Cloud, the game's protagonist, right before the movie cuts to the game's title and logo to close.

The release of this opening movie follows numerous screenshots which were also shared by Square Enix this week. Some of those offered better looks at characters like Red XIII while others showed what the combat would look like when it's happening naturally and not in stylized cinematics like this one. If you're unfamiliar with the plot of the game and the different forces at work, the post on the PlayStation Blog also provided some context for the industrialized parts of the movie by describing different areas players will encounter.

"The Mako Reactor sucks out Mako from the core of the planet," Square Enix said. "It's then turned into electricity or liquid gas for cities — though it's also used to produce Materia and for other research. The Shinra Electric Power Company has a monopoly on the resource, and have set up various Mako reactors across the world. However, some question the safety of this, and there have been confirmed cases of accidents in reactors at remote locations."

We also got a look at some of the game's unique summons, though not everyone is on board with those.

Final Fantasy VII releases for the PlayStation 4 on April 10th.