It finally happened, Final Fantasy 7 Remake is real and many of us are already playing and some of us have even finished and are trying to process what exactly went down at the end of the game. There’s a lot going and whether you played the original or not, it’s understandable if you’re a little confused. The ending is a little up to interpretation right now until the next part comes out, but we’ll take our best crack at explaining the ending of Final Fantasy 7 Remake.
Spoiler Warning 1: In case you are still here on accident and somehow missed all of the warnings and the obvious title, we are going to be talking about the ending of Final Fantasy 7 Remake. Please definitely click off this page if you haven’t yet experienced it yourself and plan to any time in the near future.
Also, we’re going to attempt to explain it only within the context of the information we have in this game and what happened in the original to this point in the story. We are not going to be using the original to potentially spoil what may happen in the future of the remake. Not only is that lame, it may not even be accurate anyway as we’ll soon see.
Final Fantasy 7 Remake’s Ending Explained
Okay so we’re going to assume you know what’s going on at least through Chapter 18. If not, read our story summary to get caught up.
Everything that goes on is fairly straightforward until things start getting weird in the Shinra building with President Shinra. When the group reaches his office and the rooftop right outside, President Shinra is hanging from the building about to fall off. Sephiroth, when he escaped with Jenova, put him in this position somehow.
Barret reluctantly rescues President Shinra but Sephiroth shows up and kills the President and appears to also kill Barret in the same way. However, the whispers don’t allow Barret to die. They heal his wounds but not President Shinra’s, who apparently is destined to die.
Between this miracle and Sephiroth’s ramblings, the group is finally starting to piece together that the whispers are pushing everyone down a preordained path. They are receiving images of the future and while it’s hard to tell what’s going on, they just don’t like the idea of being controlled regardless of the outcome.
The whispers to this point have gotten involved every time something started to stray from the path that the original game took to this point in the remake. So it’s my interpretation anyway that the whispers are designed to keep the heroes on the path of the original, and it’s their desire to break free of that.
For example, the whispers ensure that Aerith and Cloud meet, they make sure Aerith isn’t captured by Reno at the Church, that Barret doesn’t die in President Shinra’s office but President Shinra does, etc.
Whispers have engulfed all of Midgar at this point and is sending the message that things are completely out of their hand. Sephiroth offers them an opportunity to break free and challenge fate.
Long story short, they do indeed defeat Whisper Harbinger, the head honcho of the Whispers apparently, and give Sephiroth a little bit of a beatdown too while they are at it for good measure.
Sephiroth tries to tempt Cloud to join him in his misguided plot to punish or destroy the world in some way that’s still not fully clear to us but based on the legend of the Ancients, probably involves a meteor. Cloud rejects his offer, and everyone eventually is back together on the outskirts of Midgar, seemingly in full control of their destiny for the first time.
It’s at this point now that Square Enix appears to be hinting to us that anything is on the table to be changed now and they instantly show us a few examples before the credits roll.
Biggs is apparently alive in Sector 6 resting up at the orphanage. In the original he dies alongside Jessie and Wedge when the sector 7 plate crashes.
And there’s Zack… where do we begin with Zack? Let’s start with what is presented to us at face value within Final Fantasy 7 Remake only. Zack appears in a vision or flashback of sorts. He is protecting Cloud and fighting off a large group of Shinra soldiers. He is successful and, in this ending scene, is seen carrying Cloud to safety to Midgar. This appears to be happening concurrently with the group as they walk away from Midgar at the end of the game. They can’t see Zack and Cloud, but Aerith seems to sense them.
If you have no idea what’s going on from the original game, this might be just a weird tease to you. If you’re familiar with Final Fantasy 7 and Final Fantasy 7 Crisis Core, you’ll know why this is actually a very crazy scene.
Spoiler Warning 2: We’re going to wrap up by using a little bit of context from Crisis Core to fill in some of the blanks about what’s going on with that scene at the end of the remake. If you’re familiar with Crisis Core and the original Final Fantasy 7, then you’re fine, but if you aren’t and you want to keep it a mystery, we suggest you click off now as it’s the last thing we’re going to talk about.
So the reason that final scene is so wild is because in Crisis Core, the prequel to the original Final Fantasy 7, Zack doesn’t survive that battle versus Shinra and Cloud escapes on his own to Midgar. That is a massive deviation, and it is yet another clue that the defeat of the whispers may be hinting more differences from the original game’s plot in future parts.
However, there’s no way to know any of this for sure until the next part comes out and confirms it. Until then, your take on what everything that happened at the end really means is as good as mine
That’s our explanation of the ending of Final Fantasy 7 Remake. For more tips, tricks and FAQs answered definitely make sure to check out our Final Fantasy 7 Remake wiki guide and read our fully scored review.
