Surprise! From today, 28th April, you can download a free demo for Square Enix‘s Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth on both the Nintendo Switch 2 and Xbox Series X/S. Any progress made during the demo will carry over when the full game launches for Switch 2 and Xbox on 3rd June. As an added bonus, if you have demo save data on your device when the full game launches, you will be able to claim a ‘kupo charm’ (for you Moogle fans) and ‘survival set’ featuring bonus healing items that’ll be a boon during the opening hours of the game. The demo weighs in at 45GB on Nintendo Switch 2 and 91GB on Xbox Series X/S.
The demo contains a fairly sizable chunk of the game, featuring the first two of Rebirth’s 14 chapters. If you’ve not played it, Chapter 1 is based around Cloud’s memories of the infamous and iconic Nibelheim incident. Chapter 2, meanwhile, shunts you into the game proper and the modern day timeline as the party of heroes arrives in Kalm, where they rest and regroup after their climactic escape from Midgar at the end of Final Fantasy 7 Remake.
In terms of what you get to play, then, it’s the very start of the game and then some semi-open area bits – including your first few games of Queen’s Blood (in case you needed a new time sink).
If you’re wondering how the game runs on Nintendo’s newest little handheld, I had some hands-on time with the demo earlier this month. Let me tell you, it’s nothing short of magical: and represents a better technical feat than even Final Fantasy 7 Remake did earlier this year. “The particle effects, the magic effects, the 30fps framerate (which is perfectly fine for a game like this, thank you very much) – all of it feels just as at home on Switch 2 as it ever did on PS5. Somehow,” I wrote in my preview. And now you can try all that out for yourself.
As part of the demo, you will also get to experience some of the new streamlined progression system options that make the game much easier to play a second time around. Or, just make the prospect of catching up on the story a cinch, for anyone who wants to get acquainted with what’s going on before the yet-to-be-revealed third part of the trilogy starts taking up all the Final Fantasy bandwidth you may have.
