Final Fantasy VII is a role-playing game developed by Square, released in 1997. It followed ex-soldier Cloud Strife and the eco-terrorist group AVALANCHE in a struggle against the Shinra corporation and the nihilistic mercenary Sephiroth — a story of grief, identity, and planetary survival that made JRPGs a mainstream global phenomenon.
Final Fantasy VII is a role-playing game developed and published by Square (in collaboration with Sony Computer Entertainment in North America), released in January 1997 in Japan and September 1997 internationally for the PlayStation. The seventh mainline entry in the Final Fantasy series, it was the first to use 3D graphics and pre-rendered backgrounds, marking a dramatic leap in the series' ambition and scale.
Combat uses an Active Time Battle system in which players manage a party of three characters, selecting actions from menus while a timer ticks down. The Materia system allows deep customisation of abilities, magic, and summons by slotting coloured orbs into equipment — one of the most elegant and flexible RPG systems of its era. The world is vast: a sprawling overworld connects the dystopian city of Midgar to jungles, deserts, snowfields, and ruins across a planet under threat.
Final Fantasy VII told a story of unusual emotional weight for a game of its time — centred on trauma, environmentalism, corporate exploitation, and the cost of manufactured identity. Its most famous moment, the death of Aerith Gainsborough, became one of the most discussed scenes in gaming history. The game expanded the audience for JRPGs in the West enormously, proving the genre could compete with Hollywood in scope and emotional resonance.
Final Fantasy VII is ranked #8 on Rolling Stone's 2025 list of the 50 Greatest Video Games of All Time. It remains one of the best-selling and most beloved RPGs ever made, spawning films, spin-offs, and a multi-part remake series that began in 2020.