Several key staff members from the original game returned, including Tetsuya Nomura as the director, Yoshinori Kitase as the producer, Kazushige Nojima as the writer, Motomu Toriyama as a co-director, and the composer Nobuo Uematsu.

[11] Shinra uses Mako, a refined form of the Planet's spiritual energy harvested by massive reactors, to power the metropolis of Midgar and develop cutting-edge technology.

[12] Disillusioned with Shinra, and at the request of his childhood friend Tifa Lockhart (Britt Baron / Ayumi Ito),[e] Cloud takes a mercenary job for Avalanche, an ecological resistance organization led by Barret Wallace (John Eric Bentley / Masahiro Kobayashi).

In the aftermath, Cloud is haunted by memories of Sephiroth (Tyler Hoechlin / Toshiyuki Morikawa), an enigmatic former SOLDIER member, and meets the florist Aerith Gainsborough (Briana White / Maaya Sakamoto).

[14] Intergrade adds additional ending scenes showing Cloud and his group arriving at the village of Kalm after hitching a ride with Chocobo Bill, as well as Zack entering the Sector 5 church searching for Aerith.

Shortly after the bombing of Mako Reactor 5, Yuffie Kisaragi (Suzie Yeung[15] / Yumi Kakazu), a ninja working for Wutai, arrives at Midgar and meets up with her partner Sonon Kusakabe (Aleks Le / Yoshimasa Hosoya) in order to steal Shinra's "Ultimate Materia."

[21] The staff were preoccupied with developing Final Fantasy XIII and its sequels, and Remake would have been an equally large or larger project hard to undertake at the same time.

All three were reaching a stage of life that they defined as "that age": all felt that if they waited much longer, they might not be alive to or would be too old to develop a remake, and passing the project on to a new generation did not feel right.

[32][33][34] Another reason for developing the remake was that Square Enix was creating a growing library of PlayStation 4 titles, and the team hoped to increase the console's popularity.

[34] Nomura was appointed as director much to his own surprise when it was decided to create the remake but he was busy with the making of the video game Kingdom Hearts III at that time.

[36][37][38] While Nomura was involved with the project from the start, he only discovered he was the director after seeing himself credited in an internal company presentation video, as he had expected Kitase to fill the role.

In the end, the team decided the best option for the project was to go for the highest level possible (such as within the city of Midgar, which was mostly inaccessible in the original) with an expanded story in multiple releases.

[50] Regarding the scope for the first part of the Remake, Nomura mentioned that many were worried about how the company would be able to make a whole game based solely on Midgar, but he didn't think it would be a problem.

[47][40] Kitase observed that despite 23 years passing since the original game was released, the themes of economic inequality, corporate monopoly, and environmentalism were still relevant to the current day.

[40] Nomura expressed regret that other areas of Midgar, such as the upper plate, were inaccessible in the original game and wanted to address that in Remake in order to give players a better sense of the city and its culture.

[52] Yoshinori Kitase refrained from explaining the reason for the changes from the narrative: "I want to let you know is that all of the lore from the works created after the original game, the [Compilation of Final Fantasy VII], that's all very much in the base of the canon for the remake, and going forward it will be too".

[67][71] Remake employs adaptive music in its gameplay wherein multiple arrangements of a particular track are played simultaneously, which fade in and out with the player's actions, such as entering or exiting a battle.

Because cutscenes in Remake have voiced dialogue, the sound team needed to rearrange some tracks to accommodate this change but they were careful to preserve the original melodies.

[32] Square Enix's stock prices rose to their highest rating since November 2008, and the YouTube release of the reveal trailer garnered over 10 million views in the following two weeks.

[81] The release date, March 3, 2020, was revealed the following month in a second teaser trailer during an orchestral concert dedicated to the music of Final Fantasy VII in Los Angeles.

[84] An extended gameplay showcase and demo was playable at E3 2019, demonstrating parts of the opening mission, including some of the exploration, combat system, and first boss battle.

[96] In March 2020, Square Enix revealed that Europe and Australia would receive physical copies of Final Fantasy VII Remake early, due to growing concerns of the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on distribution.

[101] It includes a PS5-exclusive DLC expansion titled Episode Intermission[g] featuring the playable character Yuffie Kisaragi, who does not appear in the Midgar segment of the original game.

Tamoor Hussain of GameSpot states that, while Remake is only the initial entry in a full reimagining of the original game, it is rich in details that were previously unexplored, realizes new storytelling ambitions with confidence, and presents fresh perspectives that feel both meaningful and essential in his review.

To summarize, he says that the game tells a smaller, more personal Final Fantasy VII tale and marries it with a smart mashup of action and RPG gameplay in order to deliver a must-play experience.

[117][125][140] IGN called its "story fleshed out with real emotional arcs", praising its nostalgic feel, while criticizing the game for having "filler" and sometimes convoluted new plot points and side missions, but concluding that the remake brings a new life into a classic while standing as a great RPG on its own.

[123][120][121] Critical response to the new combat has been positive, partly due to the strategy needed and the distinctive fighting style of each playable character, such as Cloud wielding a sword, in contrast to Barret's shooting from afar.

[127] RPGamer praised both the return of Materia used to provide magic attacks and the addition of upgradeable weapons in order to let players decide which equipment they want to use.

[119] In regards to Intergrade, Siliconera praised the focus on Yuffie's story even if she comes across as annoying due to her younger personality but felt her relationship with Sonon improved it.

[158] German trade association GAME reported that it took Final Fantasy VII Remake only a few days to sell more than 100,000 units within Germany, for which it won a Gold Sales Award.