Today Famitsu published an interview with Tetsuya Nomura about the upcoming Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade release for PS5.
First of all, we learn about Sonon’s design. His oriental appearance with military-style clothing and armor derives from his Wutai origin and role as someone working with Avalanche. The idea of having him fight with a staff is a balancing factor to Yuffie’s own fighting style, so his outfit had to make it easy to move around comfortably.
We also hear that originally, he had a softer “pretty boy” feature, but since he was to be paired with Yuffie, the developers wanted to have something different from Cloud or Vincent, so Nomura-san changed Sonon with a more masculine appearance.
The player controls Yuffie exclusively during gameplay, but the system creates awareness of Sonon’s actions, so you can look for opportunities for combinations. You can also set Sonon to act independentrly, or to follow Yuffie’s commands. You press L2 to switch between these modes.
There will also be new summons and materia create just for Yuffie’s episode.
Said episode was labeled a DLC due to the nature of the upgrade system (those who have the PS4 version will have to purchase Yuffie’s episode separately as DLC). Yet, the original idea was to create a PS5 version of Final Fantasy VII Remake and not to produce DLC. In fact, there are no further plans for DLC at this time.
Setting up the PS5 development environment made moving on to develop the sequel much smoother. Square Enix is now prioritizing the roadmap for completing the next game, so any more potential DLC would have to come after that is finished.
Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade will release on PS5 on June 10, 2021. No PS4 version appears to be planned for Yuffie’s episode at the moment. You can also check out a recent batch of screenshots.
If you’d like to read more about the Final Fantasy VII Remake, which is currently available for PS4, you can read our review.
