FF7 Revelation will reveal more of Vincent Valentine’s past and introduce a new way to use his Beast Mode in combat. Read on for the latest details from Naoki Hamaguchi’s Gamescom 2026 deep dive.
FF7 Revelation Gamescom Deep Dive Covers Vincent, Combat, and More
Vincent Valentine Gets More Backstory and a New Way of Fighting
Final Fantasy 7 Revelation director Naoki Hamaguchi discussed the game's combat design during the FYNG Gamescom 2026 deep dive on August 26. Vincent Valentine, the FITS system, and the returning Weapons were among the topics covered.
Vincent will be fully playable in Revelation after his appearance in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. Hamaguchi said the final game will explore parts of Vincent's history that were never shown in the original Final Fantasy 7. Fans already know about his time as a Turk, though there is still little information about where he came from and what he did before joining Cloud's party.
"People know quite a bit about Vincent as a character: who he is, what his background's like," Hamaguchi said through a translator. He added that Revelation will go "even deeper into his backstory" and introduce new information about things Vincent did in the past.
Hamaguchi did not want to reveal those story details yet. He did discuss how Vincent plays, including a major change to his transformation mechanic.
Vincent's Limit Breaks triggered his transformations in the original game. Revelation lets players activate his Beast Mode freely during combat. His normal form uses firearms for long-range attacks, while Beast Mode takes him into close combat. Players can move between the two forms during a fight.
Hamaguchi said he has been particularly pleased with Vincent's implementation. He even joked that Vincent feels so good to control that he worries players may want to use him for the entire game.
Cid Highwind came up shortly afterward, with Hamaguchi pointing to him as another character who feels particularly good to control. He described Cid as an aerialist whose combat centers on aerial combos.
He was later asked which character he personally enjoys using the most. He said he likes all of the characters, though Yuffie and Vincent are the two he often chooses for his own party.
FITS System and Weapons Expand Revelation’s Combat
The different ways characters can function in battle are central to FITS, which Hamaguchi described as a job system. The team developed it after seeing how players built parties in Remake and Rebirth.
Each character had a defined combat role in those games. Hamaguchi said that led players toward a small number of party combinations even when they were free to choose their preferred characters. FITS gives characters new roles and abilities so players can build parties around the characters they actually want to use.
"We really wanted for this final part of the series to choose any combination of party as they want," Cloud, he used as an example, is a melee character who can take on a mage job through FITS. The job changes his role in the party and lets him specialize in magic.
Hamaguchi was also asked about the returning Weapons and whether players would have to defeat them to progress through the story. He did not directly answer whether the encounters are mandatory or optional. Hamaguchi instead explained how the team redesigned their battles for Revelation.
The Weapons' enormous size presented a challenge for the developers. A direct recreation of their original encounters would leave the party fighting around their ankles, according to Hamaguchi. The team therefore adapted the battles to work with Revelation's combat system.
"The real core of the enjoyment you get from an RPG and the battle system in an RPG is you're building up your characters," he said. "You're getting stronger, you're enhancing them, and then you want to use that party that you've crafted to take on all the really big powerful enemies."
Hamaguchi said the team wanted each Weapon battle to have elements that players would not encounter anywhere else in the game. Some encounters will introduce special mechanics and interactions within the core battle system. Others will include phases that change the controls completely through minigame-style sections. Hamaguchi described the encounters as an "elaborate package" that the team designed to make each Weapon battle a centerpiece of the action.
The Gamescom Opening Night Live trailer showed one example with Emerald Weapon. The party is seen attacking it from a submarine, a sequence that did not exist in the original game. The submarine was previously used to reach Emerald Weapon before the standard turn-based battle began. Revelation now appears to make the submarine sequence part of the fight itself.
What’s Next for Hamaguchi After FF7 Revelation?
He closed the deep dive by reflecting on the response to the trilogy and the questions surrounding his next project. Hamaguchi said he sees the growing interest in what he might make after Revelation as a sign that the team has delivered the games its audience wanted.
As for what comes next, Hamaguchi left the possibilities open. He mentioned the possibility of working on Final Fantasy 7 again, another Final Fantasy game, or something completely different. For now, he said he is looking forward to taking on "new and exciting challenges" and creating "completely new gameplay experiences."
For more on Final Fantasy 7 Revelation, check out our article below!
Source:
FYNG Gamescom | Final Fantasy 7 Deep Dive
FINAL FANTASY VII REVELATION | The Planet's Crisis Trailer
