A new chapter for Final Fantasy VII Ever Crisis has revealed more of Sephiroth’s origin, giving fans a closer look at the early days of the infamous villain back when he wasn’t hellbent on becoming a god-like being. As part of The First Soldier missions (and spotted by Eurogamer), this new chapter has a key moment in which Sephiroth holds up a photo of a woman that he believes is his mother and that he refers to as Jenova.
The plot twist here is that the woman in the photo is Sephiroth’s birth mother. As established in the original Final Fantasy VII timeline, Sephiroth is the son of Shinra scientists Hojo and Lucrecia, but with a twist. Hojo injected Lucrecia with Jenova cells while she was pregnant as part of the Project S experiment, a procedure that built on the foundation of Project G to produce the powerful but flawed super-soldiers Genesis Rhapsodos and Angeal Hewley.
Unlike his two comrades, Sephiroth was a success story and established himself as the most powerful member of Shinra’s SOLDIER military force. At the same time, Sephiroth was left detached from humanity and alienated, and this new chapter expands on Sephiroth’s story with a more tragic layer. While Sephiroth never grew up to know who his mother was, Hojo clearly lied to him about the identity of his parent.
Whether Sephiroth needs that extra backstory is up for debate, and one that has been the subject of a lot of discourse on social media over the last couple of days. Fans are debating if adding more layers to Sephiroth ultimately dilutes his position as arguably the most iconic and enigmatic Final Fantasy villain, what these new developments mean for him, and if they’re even canon to the story of Final Fantasy VII.
But at the very least, these new additions to Final Fantasy VII’s lore prove that Professor Hojo really is one of the most despicable characters in the franchise.
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth launches on February 29, 2024, for PS5, and ahead of its release, Square Enix has shared a lot of details on its action-RPG. At the 2023 Tokyo Game Show, the company showed off more of the game’s open world and synergized combat with free-roaming monsters. Preorders are now live for the game, with multiple editions ranging from standard editions to a special collector’s edition that comes with an impressive 19-inch Sephiroth statue.
“Where Final Fantasy 7 Remake narrowed its focus, its follow-up–and the second in a trilogy of games, that will tell the complete Final Fantasy 7 story–Rebirth, necessitates much greater ambition,” Tamoor Hussain wrote in GameSpot’s Final Fantasy VII Rebirth preview.
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