Final Fantasy 7 Celebrates 29 Years with Concept Art Reveal

JRPG legend Tetsuya Nomura recently celebrated the monumental 29th anniversary of Final Fantasy 7 by unveiling an intriguing piece of early concept art. This artwork showcases a style of combat that didn’t truly materialize until the release of Final Fantasy 7 Remake, years later. “This year marks the 29th anniversary of Final Fantasy 7, so next year looks set to be an even more special occasion,” the original FF7 character designer and narrative co-writer shared via Twitter. “In celebration of this 29th anniversary, I sought out some past concept art and comments to share.”

Nomura revealed that the piece he chose for this celebration was one that had previously remained largely unpublished, making its debut now feel like a significant event. “Since most development materials have already been released before, I picked a piece that was incompletely published the first time around, so this is effectively its first full public appearance,” he explained.

This conceptual artwork hails from the very early stages of the game’s development and features rough sketches of Midgar’s streets, presenting a dramatic showdown between a massive dragon enemy and a similarly sketched Cloud, who notably retained his iconic spiky hairstyle even in these initial designs.

Nomura elaborated on one particular character in the artwork: “The figure aiming a gun on the elevated platform is ‘Johnny the Needle’, a character from the initial plot.” He clarified that this version of Johnny is different from the one seen in the main storyline, as the concepts for Johnny the Needle were later folded into the character of Reno. He also pointed out a character on the left staircase resembling Avalanche, though this character was still unnamed and lacked a defined role at this stage.

A fascinating insight from Nomura is how this early artwork depicted combat not in the traditional fixed battlefields of previous Final Fantasy titles, but as a dynamic experience within a three-dimensional city environment. “Ultimately, this form of combat wasn’t realized in the original, but has been successfully achieved in the ongoing FF7 remake series,” he noted, adding, “I would be delighted if you could continue enjoying this grand project, where elements technically unachievable in the original are now being realized in the remake series.”