We all saw this coming, right? As is the case for, well, just about every PC game, the modders have descended upon Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth in droves. And I’m loving every second of it. As I stated in my FF7 Rebirth review, all I really hoped for were Draw Distance settings and minor graphical tweaks. After checking popular modding sites like NexusMods and others, it seems we’ve got that. Along with various Rebirth mods that range from “normal quality-of-life fixes” to “completely unhinged.”
‘Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth’ director Naoki Hamaguchi thinks mods are cool, just don’t make it weird
In a recent interview with Automaton, FF7 Rebirth director Naoki Hamaguchi clarified his previous statements regarding modding. “I wasn’t trying to tell people not to use mods. It was more about being mindful. Both creators and users alike should ensure mods don’t detract from the intended game experience,” Hamaguchi states. The director admits when playing games on PC, he sometimes uses mods himself.
While the majority of mods available seem to fit the criteria of “not detracting from the intended game experience,” others may have the Rebirth director shaking his head. Alas, once the internet gets ahold of your source code, the shenanigans are bound to arrive. Browsing through the selection at NexusMods, I’ve seen plenty of visual enhancing tweaks, fixes for ultrawide support, and field-of-view unlocks. Pretty tame so far.
Then, you start getting into the character-altering mods. Like Tifa, here, adorned with Nvidia marketing on her crop top, for some reason. Quite a strange way to break immersion, but hey, Tifa looks pretty cool in an all-black getup.
On the other hand, mods like “No More Yellow Paint” help to add some immersion back into Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth‘s detailed environment. A contentious topic for some, the “yellow paint” trend is a feature in games that helps indicate interactable objects in a game world, like climbable rocks and ledges. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for accessibility, but I do wish features like that could be toggled on or off by default.
… of course, pc modders are already making it weird
After browsing NexusMods a bit more, things really start getting wacky. One mod allows you to have Yuffie and Cait Sith in your party at the beginning of Chapter 2. Another lets you essentially break the game, adding Sephiroth and Zack as playable party members in the Grasslands. It’s weird, it arguably detracts from the intended experience, and I love it.
They’re not just reskins of Cloud, either. Sephiroth and Zack are, in fact, authentic versions of themselves, complete with their own skills and limit breaks. These aren’t risk-free mods by any means, as the creator warns that summoning a Chocobo with Sephiroth will softlock the game. Though, it’s all too hilarious seeing Sephiroth prancing around the Grasslands, only to eventually meet himself in a nearby swamp.
We’re less than a week out from Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth‘s PC launch. At the time of this writing, there’s already 85 mods available on NexusMods. I haven’t seen any naughty mods pop up just yet, but I have full faith the PC modding community will do what it does best in the near future.
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