A modern Final Fantasy VII remake is easily the most-requested video game of our generation. There’s even a long-running petition with over 65,000 signatures. I’m more of a Final Fantasy VIII fan personally, but I’d happily take either or. Sadly, the official word from Square Enix is that giving fans what they want would essentially be too hard, so instead they’re going to continue making easy sequels that no one asked for in the first place.
Not content to wait around for the inevitable, however, a group of fans have remade the opening sequence to the beloved RPG using the freely available Unreal Developer Kit. I’m not going to lie, it’s not terribly impressive, especially when held up to the Square-developed PS3 tech demo from a few years ago, or even the fan-made Duke Nukem 3D remake that was so good 3D Realms officially gave its blessing to be released (though that seems to have changed).
All of the videos are below for you to decide yourself:
Fan-made Unreal Engine version
Square-made PlayStation 3 tech demo
Comparison video with original and PS3 versions side-by-side
Fan-made Unreal Engine Duke Nukem 3D remake
While the Final Fantasy VII Remake project may not yet be yielding impressive results, you may still find the behind-the-scenes process detailed on their site somewhat interesting. Likewise, budding remakers eager to take the Unreal Engine for a spin themselves and get cranking on that reimagined Chrono Trigger can download it here for free.