The first proper Final Fantasy VII Rebirth trailer at Summer Game Fest 2023 provided a bunch of new story and plot mysteries to chew on and we will dive into all of them.
The only part I’m not sold on is the ‘captured cloud’ idea.
From where I’m standing, I see the purple tornadoes that sucked up copies of the infrastructure and ‘replicated’ bits of midgar, did the same to our party.
Sucking them up and enabling them to continue to defy destiny and continue in the unknown continuity.
Therefore, in the reality left behind, we have a Tifa, Barrett, red and aerith all in a comatose state following the destruction of the left behind midgar, as seen on the news report.
Due to zacks survival, cloud remains catatonic also, and as you say never joins avalanche - ‘resetting’ him back to zacks position following his survival.
You’d then have 2 separate parties for rebirth, both with no overlapping characters -
1) Zack and a comatose cloud entering midgar, with Zack as primary playable character - meeting other defiers of fate - Biggs etc. Cloud never becoming the ex-soldier and Zack leaving him in the care of Kiriu as he goes off to find aerith and forge his own new destiny. All other members of the OG party are conveniently comatose.(whilst their other versions go off exploring the unknown continuity.)
2) The ‘unknown destiny’ party - adventuring the world and chasing sephiroth, whilst their left behind versions are all out of action in the new world where Zack survived and avalanche fails its attack on shinra.
I can see sephiroth as meddling in both worlds, from his third position of continuity - being that of OG timelines end, and him going back into each of these two, to attempt to retcon his own demise in the OG FF7
I look forward to an in depth breakdown of the state of play trailer next!
"From where I’m standing, I see the purple tornadoes that sucked up copies of the infrastructure and ‘replicated’ bits of midgar, did the same to our party.
Sucking them up and enabling them to continue to defy destiny and continue in the unknown continuity. "
That still would not account for Cloud as he would need to be among the other 4 on the highway, which he is not. Therefore, something else must have happened, hence the idea of a separate continuity which is the result of another failed attempt by Aerith to save everybody but not reset by the Whispers, which was then co-opted by Sephiroth and merged with altered memories of Captured Cloud who he lured into the Singularity and thus ripped away from the others.
I essentially agree with you on the other points, though.
I do admit it's not a clean answer and I might be wrong on some aspects, but I will try to make sense of everything when I tackle the new information and scenes from the September 2023 news and trailer blowout.
I’m really loving the theories you’re suggesting :)
Gives a lot of food for thought!
Very much looking forward to your next article, and more points for discussion.
One thing that your article has made me think about, is: what is going to be Zack’s party in his continuity?
Assuming he becomes a playable character - and the main playable character of his continuity, who will be his party members???
I’m guessing they won’t want them to be any of the OG characters (tifa/aerith/barret/red), so perhaps he’ll end up recruiting his own team of Midgar-based allies - Biggs? Roche even?? Sonon???
I wonder if he’ll go on his own adventure through deepground, tying his adventure to Angeal/Genesis/Weiss etc, and form his own team from those in midgar.
I could almost see Roche joining him, as another more renegade member of SOILDIER 😁
Hard to say. It heavily depends on the story that is being told from Zack's perspective. However, Biggs and especially Roche are a good bet. Zack is still on the run from Shinra and takes refuge in sector 5 where Biggs also resides. He could help Zack out. Roche is too much of a loose cannon and does what he wants. I can see him becoming rogue and thus teaming up with Zack. But that's as far as I'd like to go with predictions as it would devolve into pure speculation territory and head canon or even fan fiction :D
Deepground has already been established as being a thing in the remake trilogy, so why not going further with it? Maybe not before game 3, however. We'll see. I don't see Zack teaming up with anybody associated from Shinra besides maybe Cissney and Roche.
Whether your observations are right or wrong in the end I have to say the amount of work you do and the extraordinary detail is truly astounding. I’m loving every minute of it. Thank you.
And that's what matters. Seeing others enjoy my work. Calling things ahead of time or being on point with my theories is just icing on the cake. I also don't mind being wrong. It's all part of the fun! And thank you for your appreciation :)
A wonderfully detailed and fab article!!
I think this all makes a lot of sense!
The only part I’m not sold on is the ‘captured cloud’ idea.
From where I’m standing, I see the purple tornadoes that sucked up copies of the infrastructure and ‘replicated’ bits of midgar, did the same to our party.
Sucking them up and enabling them to continue to defy destiny and continue in the unknown continuity.
Therefore, in the reality left behind, we have a Tifa, Barrett, red and aerith all in a comatose state following the destruction of the left behind midgar, as seen on the news report.
Due to zacks survival, cloud remains catatonic also, and as you say never joins avalanche - ‘resetting’ him back to zacks position following his survival.
You’d then have 2 separate parties for rebirth, both with no overlapping characters -
1) Zack and a comatose cloud entering midgar, with Zack as primary playable character - meeting other defiers of fate - Biggs etc. Cloud never becoming the ex-soldier and Zack leaving him in the care of Kiriu as he goes off to find aerith and forge his own new destiny. All other members of the OG party are conveniently comatose.(whilst their other versions go off exploring the unknown continuity.)
2) The ‘unknown destiny’ party - adventuring the world and chasing sephiroth, whilst their left behind versions are all out of action in the new world where Zack survived and avalanche fails its attack on shinra.
I can see sephiroth as meddling in both worlds, from his third position of continuity - being that of OG timelines end, and him going back into each of these two, to attempt to retcon his own demise in the OG FF7
I look forward to an in depth breakdown of the state of play trailer next!
Thank you for your comment!
"From where I’m standing, I see the purple tornadoes that sucked up copies of the infrastructure and ‘replicated’ bits of midgar, did the same to our party.
Sucking them up and enabling them to continue to defy destiny and continue in the unknown continuity. "
That still would not account for Cloud as he would need to be among the other 4 on the highway, which he is not. Therefore, something else must have happened, hence the idea of a separate continuity which is the result of another failed attempt by Aerith to save everybody but not reset by the Whispers, which was then co-opted by Sephiroth and merged with altered memories of Captured Cloud who he lured into the Singularity and thus ripped away from the others.
I essentially agree with you on the other points, though.
I do admit it's not a clean answer and I might be wrong on some aspects, but I will try to make sense of everything when I tackle the new information and scenes from the September 2023 news and trailer blowout.
I’m really loving the theories you’re suggesting :)
Gives a lot of food for thought!
Very much looking forward to your next article, and more points for discussion.
One thing that your article has made me think about, is: what is going to be Zack’s party in his continuity?
Assuming he becomes a playable character - and the main playable character of his continuity, who will be his party members???
I’m guessing they won’t want them to be any of the OG characters (tifa/aerith/barret/red), so perhaps he’ll end up recruiting his own team of Midgar-based allies - Biggs? Roche even?? Sonon???
I wonder if he’ll go on his own adventure through deepground, tying his adventure to Angeal/Genesis/Weiss etc, and form his own team from those in midgar.
I could almost see Roche joining him, as another more renegade member of SOILDIER 😁
Hard to say. It heavily depends on the story that is being told from Zack's perspective. However, Biggs and especially Roche are a good bet. Zack is still on the run from Shinra and takes refuge in sector 5 where Biggs also resides. He could help Zack out. Roche is too much of a loose cannon and does what he wants. I can see him becoming rogue and thus teaming up with Zack. But that's as far as I'd like to go with predictions as it would devolve into pure speculation territory and head canon or even fan fiction :D
Deepground has already been established as being a thing in the remake trilogy, so why not going further with it? Maybe not before game 3, however. We'll see. I don't see Zack teaming up with anybody associated from Shinra besides maybe Cissney and Roche.
New trailer dropped the other day, and it looks like zach and Biggs are joining up!!! 😊
I can’t wait for your in depth breakdown on it already!
I’ve been through it a fair few times and been looking for Easter eggs - there’s quite a lot!
I'm a bit swamped at the moment, but I hope I can get some analysis work done in the coming 2 weeks off work.
There's a LOT to cover and I hope to publish the most important aspects before February 29th.
Excellent observation! It was a long read, but you gave me lots to think about and discuss with friends, I look forward to your next breakdown.
Whether your observations are right or wrong in the end I have to say the amount of work you do and the extraordinary detail is truly astounding. I’m loving every minute of it. Thank you.
And that's what matters. Seeing others enjoy my work. Calling things ahead of time or being on point with my theories is just icing on the cake. I also don't mind being wrong. It's all part of the fun! And thank you for your appreciation :)