We have suspected it for a while, and now, it got silently confirmed: the Final Fantasy VII remake (or the first episode of it… as we have heard from Square Enix that the game is planned to be episodic) is not going to be exclusive to the PlayStation 4.

Let’s start with Final Fantasy VII Remake’s box art:

This image is from Square Enix’ website. It’s not Photoshopped. It’s not something hoax. The bottom right of the image shows the following text:  „PlayStation exclusive. Play first on PlayStation 4. *Timed exclusive until March 3, 2021.” Which means Square Enix’ next big title will be available only on the PlayStation 4 for a year, and Cloud’s updated adventures should be available on Xbox One and PC from March 2021, and that time already makes us wonder whether there are plans for a next-gen version. We wouldn’t rule out a PlayStation 5 release in 2021…

After the E3 2015 announcement, Square Enix thus needed roughly five years to make the project happen, which probably got kickstarted after the trollish PlayStation Experience 2014 announcement, when they said the PC port of Final Fantasy VII will be available on the PlayStation 4. A German retailer’s website also listed the Xbox One version previously, and even a June press release said that Final Fantasy VII will „debut first” on PlayStation 4.

Such a timed exclusivity is not a surprise: a few years ago, Microsoft and Square Enix decided to make the sequel to the 2013 Tomb Raider reboot, Rise of the Tomb Raider, exclusive to the Xbox 360 and the Xbox One, before it got ported to PC and PlayStation 4 later.

As Square Enix loves to go multiplatform nowadays (they even did it with Kingdom Hearts, heading to the Xbox One…), it’s not surprising. However, since this is an episodic game, will the next instalment a next-gen title, and thus, is the first chapter a hook to go next-gen?

Source: WCCFTech