{"id":14052,"date":"2026-06-15T15:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T15:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nextlevelnews.co.uk\/blog\/2026\/06\/15\/final-fantasy-7-revelation-is-bringing-back-the-airship-dream\/"},"modified":"2026-06-15T15:30:00","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T15:30:00","slug":"final-fantasy-7-revelation-is-bringing-back-the-airship-dream","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nextlevelnews.co.uk\/blog\/2026\/06\/15\/final-fantasy-7-revelation-is-bringing-back-the-airship-dream\/","title":{"rendered":"Final Fantasy 7 Revelation Is Bringing Back the Airship Dream"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In the opening minutes of Final Fantasy 7 Revelation\u2019s reveal trailer<\/a>, developer Square Enix reintroduces us to the Highwind. Fans of the original PlayStation game will remember its multi-propeller majesty with fondness; this was the vehicle that unlocked complete go-anywhere freedom across Final Fantasy 7\u2019s world map. Unrestricted by rivers, oceans, or mountain ranges, you could soar at high speed around the globe. And, provided there was a safe space to land, you could explore any location that caught your eye. <\/p>\n

That landing caveat doesn\u2019t apply to Revelation\u2019s Highwind. It doesn\u2019t need to touch the ground, because it\u2019s you who will be doing the descent this time. Almost certainly inspired by the original\u2019s late-game airborne insertion into Midgar, you can now dive right off the Highwind\u2019s lower deck and parachute down to the ground. Akin to Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (and, if we\u2019re honest, Fortnite) Square promises that the dive is completely seamless, taking you from the clouds down to the fully detailed terrain without skipping a beat. <\/p>\n

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This has no doubt been a challenge to design, not least because it means the developers will have had to completely re-think how we acquire Knights of Round (it can\u2019t be as easy as just dropping onto Round Island, afterall \u2013 this is the most powerful summon in the game!) But I\u2019m pleased director Naoki Hamaguchi and his team have made it work, because a fully controllable airship that can navigate through a densely detailed, full-scale open world is something I\u2019ve been waiting for Final Fantasy to do since 2001. <\/p>\n

As any long-term fan of the series will know, the structure of Final Fantasy has significantly changed over the past quarter-century. The first nine games, spanning from the pixel art of the NES through to the 3D landscapes of the PlayStation era, all featured an overworld; a big map you explore to discover new locations. These maps were not true-scale in size and were significantly less detailed than the towns and dungeons you accessed from them, but they nonetheless provided the stage for a sprawling, epic adventure. In many ways, these overworlds were one of the seeds from which today\u2019s open world games grew. <\/p>\n

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When the PlayStation 2 arrived at the dawn of the millennium, it brought with it a whole new generation of graphical fidelity. No longer was Final Fantasy restricted to pre-rendered backgrounds – the entire game could be made up of deeply detailed 3D environments with gorgeous textures. Progress comes at a cost, though. Crafting an overworld that could match the visual advancements of the main locations would have been a development nightmare; hugely expensive, technically demanding, and incredibly punishing when it came to disc space. And so when Final Fantasy 10<\/a> arrived in 2001, it did so without the series\u2019 traditional overworld. The entire game took place within its level environments \u2013 a linear chain of towns, beaches, temples, and the back of a giant evil whale. <\/p>\n

Nowhere is this shift more evident than at the helm of the Fahrenheit, Final Fantasy 10\u2019s airship. In prior games, unlocking the airship was a moment of unparalleled excitement. Each entry\u2019s cloud-surfer grants you complete freedom, permitting you to thunder across the overworld at a pace you could only dream of in the game\u2019s opening act. But in Final Fantasy 10, the Fahrenheit is nothing more than a fancy fast travel menu. A list of destinations dressed for the Met Gala. A diamond-encrusted spreadsheet of co-ordinates. <\/p>\n

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I cannot begin to explain how deflated 12 year-old me was when I finally took command of the Fahrenheit. I had fixated over the PS1 era\u2019s airships, particularly the militarised space Ferrari that was Final Fantasy 8\u2019s Ragnarok. For me, getting the airship had become the definitive Final Fantasy moment, a gaming experience unlike any other. And in Final Fantasy 10 \u2013 the first game I had obsessively followed the development of across multiple issues of Official PlayStation Magazine, dreaming of all the things a next-gen FF could be \u2013 this moment had been reduced to a UI element that could teleport me between save points. It may be a looker, with its gilded halo and pearlescant hue, but the Fahrenheit has been a constant reminder of how great progress demands great sacrifice. <\/p>\n

The mainline series has never revisited the idea of the overworld, and thus the airship dream faded. While locations became more expansive, such as Final Fantasy 12<\/a>\u2019s sprawling deserts and 13\u2019s late-game Gran Pulse region, these games followed FF10\u2019s lead. Level environments fed directly into each other, forgoing the need for a world map. The games became more linear, much to Final Fantasy 13<\/a>\u2019s detriment in particular. <\/p>\n