The director of Final Fantasy 7 Revelation has confirmed that the game's parachuting system was partly shaped by watching how players in Fortnite respond to dropping from the sky. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth director Naoki Hamaguchi made the comments in a recent interview, offering one of the clearest looks yet at how the third entry in Square Enix's remake trilogy is being designed.
Where the parachuting idea came from
Hamaguchi explained that the concept of the party parachuting down from the Highwind came up early in development. The Highwind, the iconic airship from the original Final Fantasy VII, is set to play a major role in Revelation, and the team needed a way to handle transitions from the airship to the open world below.
The problem was practical. Bringing the Highwind down to land in a high-fidelity open world creates real geographical headaches. The terrain doesn't always cooperate, and forcing a landing sequence every time players want to touch down would get old fast.
So the team looked at how other games handle the sky-to-ground transition. Hamaguchi pointed specifically to Fortnite, noting that modern players are already comfortable with the idea of characters freefalling and gliding to the ground. That familiarity, built up over years of battle royale gaming, made parachuting feel like a natural fit rather than something players would need to learn from scratch.
A battle royale mechanic in a JRPG
Here's the thing: it's actually a smart observation. Fortnite's Battle Bus drop system has been a core part of the game since 2017, and titles like Warzone, Apex Legends, and PUBG all use similar mechanics. Millions of players have spent years jumping out of flying vehicles and steering themselves toward a landing spot. That's a lot of accumulated muscle memory.
Hamaguchi's read is that Square Enix can take advantage of that. Instead of building a mechanic players need to figure out, they're borrowing a visual language the audience already speaks. The parachute drop becomes a fun moment of agency rather than a confusing interruption.
The release date for Final Fantasy 7 Revelation is set for April 8, 2027, giving the team time to polish how the system actually feels in practice. Whether the parachuting translates well from a battle royale context into a story-driven RPG is something players will get to judge for themselves.
What this means for how Revelation plays
The Highwind has always been one of the most requested features in the remake series. In the original game, getting access to the airship opened up the world in a way nothing else did. Rebirth expanded the open world concept significantly across its regions, and Revelation appears to be taking that further by letting players approach the map from above.
The parachuting system suggests the world map in Revelation will function differently from Rebirth's region-by-region structure. Dropping from the Highwind implies a more unified world that players can approach from any angle, which would be a significant shift in how the trilogy handles exploration.
For players who want to get ahead on the combat side before Revelation arrives, the FF7 Rebirth best builds for every character guide is worth revisiting. Revelation will almost certainly build on the combat systems established in Rebirth, so understanding how each character's kit works now is useful prep. The full Final Fantasy VII Rebirth strategy guides collection covers everything from weapon abilities to synergy skills if you want to go deeper.
