Final Fantasy 7 Remake has been a sore point for many a' Xbox fan for over half a decade, but the pain ends on January 22nd, 2026.
Final Fantasy 7 Remake has finally shed all forms of exclusivity, and hits Xbox Series X|S, Xbox PC, and Xbox Cloud Gaming via Xbox Play Anywhere this week. Also on Xbox Ally. Whew, that sure is a lot of Xbox.
Final Fantasy 7 Remake on Xbox is the definitive version
I began my new journey with Final Fantasy 7 Remake on Xbox Series X, where the game truly shines. It comes with performance and quality modes, trading resolution for frame rate, but both versions offer a decent experience based on your preferences. The quality mode is a stable 30 FPS, offering sharper picture quality and boosted visuals. If you want a smoother experience, you can trade some resolution for frame rates, nabbing 60 FPS instead.
The story is similar on the Xbox Ally, which despite being a PC, sports console-like simplified graphics options with some additions on top. It has the quality and performance modes I mentioned earlier, but it has frame rate caps running all the way up to 120 FPS. You can achieve more frames by having your Xbox Ally plugged in and using turbo mode, but honestly, what impressed me was how it runs on the Xbox Ally's low-power silent mode.
I'm someone who likes to try and maximize my Xbox Ally's battery life as much as humanly possible. I tend to look for games that can take advantage of the lower watt modes without massive visual compromises, and Final Fantasy 7 absolutely fits the bill.
The game runs very smoothly on high graphics on Xbox Ally X, at 1080p, 30-50 FPS or even higher even on the lowest power settings. I was able to comfortably play for over 3 hours without plugging in, and probably could've gone further with resolution compromises, lowered brightness, or hard frame rate caps. The base Xbox Ally is a similar story too, although with some additional compromises to reflect the Z2A's power over the Xbox Ally X's more potent Z2E. It's still impressively playable at 30 FPS, and offers good battery life on top.
It's perhaps to be expected that Final Fantasy 7 would perform so admirably after over half a decade of optimizations, but it's to Square Enix's credit that they stuck with the game for so long — and long enough to build an Xbox development pipeline that takes advantage of the ecosystem so nicely.
The fact you can take your save file to so many different form factors within the Windows and Xbox ecosystem so seamlessly here, with a single purchase, single save file — Final Fantasy 7 Remake has become a quintessential example of Microsoft's vision for the Xbox platform. I just hope we see more of it soon, too.
Square Enix is back on Xbox with a vengeance
Final Fantasy 7 Remake joins a long list of great Xbox Play Anywhere games from third-party publishers. Resident Evil 8: Village just hit Xbox Play Anywhere as well, Death Stranding finally got fixed up and optimized for Xbox Ally and Xbox PC, and has rejoined Xbox Game Pass to celebrate.
Square Enix has been aggressively pursuing Xbox Play Anywhere with its new CEO, with Final Fantasy 16 hitting the platform last summer, complete with similarly impressive optimizations. Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is rumored to hit Xbox this year as well, raising hopes that Final Fantasy 7 Remake's third part will hit Xbox day and date, eschewing the exclusivity periods of the previous titles.
Last Christmas, I spent pretty much my entire holiday playing through Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster Collection via Xbox Play Anywhere, spent the summer playing Final Fantasy 16 across multiple Xbox platforms, and spent most of the Autumn playing Final Fantasy Tactics via Xbox Cloud Gaming. There was a point in history where long-suffering Final Fantasy Xbox fans never thought this day would arrive.
Final Fantasy has had a chequered history with Xbox, but those times are firmly behind it. Is it too little too late? It's possible. I purchased a PS4 Pro just for Final Fantasy 7 Remake, and played through the game again when it hit PC. I suspect the vast majority who want to play Final Fantasy 7 Remake already did so on other platforms. But if, like me, you love the game enough to run through it a third time — I would argue that Final Fantasy 7 Remake on Xbox Play Anywhere is quite easily the best version.
I'm not a huge fan of some of the high-level story changes Square Enix made with Final Fantasy 7 Remake, and I wish it had a "hard" difficulty mode out of the box, rather than mountains of "easy mode" options. But, these gripes don't detract from the overall package, and I'm cognizant that my nostalgia is coloring my bias a bit here.
If you love slick hack n' slashery with an edge of classic time-stop strategizing, big bombastic cinematic boss battles, anime-styled dramatic flair with unapologetic comedic highs and despair-inducing emotional lows ... look no further, Final Fantasy 7 represents one of the best "remakes" of all time.
Follow Windows Central on Google News to keep our latest news, insights, and features at the top of your feeds!
You must confirm your public display name before commenting
Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.
