Final Fantasy 7 Remake is facing multiple challenges in the upcoming weeks

Final Fantasy 7 Remake Intergrade hit the Epic Games Store on Thursday with a controversial release, as in addition to being priced higher than other PC games, it doesn’t have the quality of its PlayStation 5 counterpart. Digital Foundry’s Alex Battaglia called it “the worst AAA release I’ve seen in a long time” and recommended not buying it.

While Alex isn’t in charge of Final Fantasy 7 Remake coverage at Digital Foundry, he shared his thoughts on the port via his Twitter account, where he said the game’s visuals suffer from unacceptable shakiness. “Your cinematic game shouldn’t do that,” Alex said on 17 December, just a day before FF7R’s PC launch.

As I mentioned – I am not covering FFVIIR – yet the stutters that happen as you immediately get in game rendered graphics are just unacceptable.
Anyone testing and playing this game on PC before release should surely realise that your cinematic game should not do that.

— Alexander Battaglia (@Dachsjaeger) December 17, 2021

Another Digital Foundry member, John Linneman, corroborated Alex’s claims and said the port was a disaster. “Smooth presentation was central to the narrative, and this version compromises that.” Apparently, the port’s problems are present regardless of what PC you’re playing on.

Alert: Alex sent his clips over for us to check out and, yeah, the PC port of FFVIIR is terrible. He captured this using an RTX3090 + 10900k at just 1080p and it's a mess. The smooth presentation was central to its story telling and this version compromises it. https://t.co/wE9Wj1OAEz

— John Linneman (@dark1x) December 17, 2021

On the other hand, the PC version of Final Fantasy 7 Remake Intergrade is apparently headed to Valve’s Steam platform, according to files found on the recently released version of the Epic Game Store. It was apparently created in October 2020, which was six months after the game’s debut on PlayStation 4. According to Twitter user @AtelierTool, the game has a Steam AppID buried in its files, something required for all games on Valve’s platform.

When downloading the PC version, players also noticed that the game contains a ‘Steamworks’ folder among its files, suggesting that the Steam version is likely to be imminent as soon as the exclusivity deal with Epic Game Store expires.

Teased for several years, Final Fantasy 7 Remake launched exclusively on PS4 in April 2020, before qualifying for a PS5 version last June, accompanied by the Intermission episode in June 2021. If it was released a few days ago on PC, the title still had a little surprise in store for PlayStation players at the end of the year.

As of Wednesday, 22 December, PS5 players who have downloaded Final Fantasy 7 Remake will be able to get the update for free. However, they will still have to spend their money to pay for the DLC Intermission, dedicated to Yuffie. However, they will be able to do so at a lower cost, as it will be offered with a temporary 25% reduction, which should bring the price down to around 15 euros.

Starting this Wednesday…

• PS Plus subscribers who previously redeemed @FinalFantasy VII Remake via @PlayStation Plus will be able to upgrade to the PS5 version of the game.

• Episode Intermission, the DLC featuring Yuffie Kisaragi, will be 25% off for a limited time! pic.twitter.com/mnkCIRR586

— FINAL FANTASY VII REMAKE (@finalfantasyvii) December 19, 2021

In any case, all players will be able to benefit from the improvements of this PS5 version of Final Fantasy 7, equipped with better lighting, much shorter loading times or the addition of an extra difficulty setting. Final Fantasy 7’s PC release has been marred by controversy, the biggest of which appears to be Square Enix’s decision to sell the game for $70/£69.99, which puts it in line with next-gen consoles but is much higher than other PC titles released by the publisher.

Source: egames