Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth Director Teases Playable Red XIII

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Tetsuya Nomura, director of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, has hinted Red XIII could be playable in the next Final Fantasy 7 Remake game. The long-running Final Fantasy series has been home to several memorable characters, but Final Fantasy 7’s Red XIII stands out as the only non-bipedal playable hero in the history of the franchise. A long-lived member of an unnamed species of lion/wolf hybrid creatures, Red XIII (birthname Nanaki) was captured by the ShinRa Electric Power Company before the events of FF7 and experimented on by the twisted Professor Hojo.

Red XIII is then discovered and rescued by Cloud Strife and his friends during their raid of ShinRa’s headquarters near the beginning of FF7, and soon becomes a loyal party member for the rest of the journey to uncover ShinRa’s plans and stop the renegade SOLDIER Sephiroth from destroying the Planet. While he is a fairly popular character within FF7 and its larger expanded universe, Red XIII wasn’t playable in FF7 Remake due to appearing relatively late in the game’s storyline — which primarily covered the early portion of the original FF7 that was set in the city of Midgar. However, the upcoming Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth will pick up with Cloud and company escaping the ShinRa-controlled metropolis, meaning Red XIII will likely be a much more prominent character going forward.

Related: FF7 Remake: How Red XIII Lost His Eye

Red XIII might also be fully playable in FF7 Rebirth, at least according to a hint from game director Tetsuya Nomura in a recent interview with Dengeki Online (as translated by The Gamer). Nomura (who also designed Red XIII for the original FF7) responded to a question about Red XIII being a playable character in Rebirth by telling the interviewer to “look