Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth Is Absolutely Stuffed With Queer Rep

thegamer.com:

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth reviews are out now, giving us a taste of what the highly anticipated sequel has to offer. And while we won't delve into spoilers just yet, one thing that's stood out from our time with the game is that Rebirth is full of queer representation, much more so than previous games.

This was noted by our reviewer, Jade King, as she made her way through Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. There are multiple queer couples to find throughout the world, many with their own stories you can learn about through overheard dialogue. Jade even spotted one lesbian couple multiple times in the game, with something different going on in their relationship each time she ran into them.

On the whole, it seems that there's been a conscious effort to diversify the kind of NPCs you run into throughout the game. There are numerous queer couples that, while not tied to the story at all, are just hanging around, living their lives, embracing one another. In one instance, you can even find two women fighting, before later seeing them together, all made up.

While it's absolutely lovely to see these kind of smaller queer stories told organically throughout the game, it's not too surprising that Square Enix has made more of an effort this time around. Final Fantasy 7 Remake already improved on the queer representation of the original Final Fantasy 7, turning the entire cross-dressing segment into a celebration of the LGBTQ+ community. Rather than shy away from it - given how the original has aged - Square Enix went all out, making the scene more over the top while keeping its depiction of queer culture respectful.

With LGBTQ+ characters included in Final Fantasy 16 too, it's safe to say that Square Enix is actively working on representing queer identities in its games. This is particularly nice to see with Rebirth, since the studio could have hidden behind the argument that there wasn't much queer rep to be found in the original.

But as we've already seen with Remake, Square Enix