The follow-up to 2020’s acclaimed Final Fantasy VII Remake is just around the corner with Final Fantasy VII Rebirth releasing on February 29. Rebirth is the second entry in the new trilogy that’s remaking one of the most influential video games of all time.

FFVII Remake was well received by fans and critics for being a modern, but faithful, recreation of the original PS1 game. Rebirth is set on continuing that legacy, already scoring an average critic rating of over 90 on Metacritic. The game once again features the real-time combat and exploration that modern Final Fantasy games are known for. It will also continue to expand on FFVII’s world, with Rebirth picking up immediately where Remake ended, as Cloud Strife’s group moves beyond the city of Midgar and into the wider world to pursue Sephiroth.

Rebirth is set to have a beautiful and seamlessly interconnected open world when it releases. Players will find that the world map is so expansive that the amount of side content is nearly double that of the main quest! Cloud’s team will start their journey in the Grasslands before journeying to other areas, like the Gold Saucer in the Corel Region, the rocky Nibel region, the seas of the Meridian Ocean, and even more.

“Players who want to enjoy Final Fantasy VII setting on an even deeper level can explore all the corners of the world, discovering many different and exciting experiences such as new stories, battles, and mini-games to play,” said Rebirth’s Director, Naoki Hamaguchi on PlayStation Blog. He also reassures players that you can return to any region after completing Rebirth’s main quest — so don’t feel like you need to explore every corner straight away (but most of us probably will anyway)!

Among the Rebirth’s many features are all new mini-games, Materia, abilities, skill trees, and synergy moves for combat. Hamaguchi noted that synergy moves will allow players “to use synergy commands and abilities freely at any time by using up a gauge charge in a similar manner to Limit Breaks”. He says that through this, players will feel the characters’ bonds developing in battle even more so than in previous games.

One of the most anticipated returning characters is Cait Sith: the iconic fortune-telling robot cat. And yes, he’s back riding his stuffed Moogle. In the original, Cait was a popular character with one of the least popular battle mechanics. Thankfully, while his personality is intact for Rebirth, his approach to combat has received an overhaul. He still has access to his luck-based attacks, but he’ll also be able to fight using normal attacks, along with summoning and riding his Moogle in battle.

Rebirth players will also be able to directly control everyone’s favourite wolf-lion, Red XIII. He has been designed to feel like a unique character in combat, with his “revenge gauge” that charges when guarding against enemy attacks. When full, the gauge can be spent on a range of his combat abilities, challenging players to find the balance between Red XIII’s offense and defense to maximise his power. During the game, you’ll also explore the Cosmo Canyon, the region that Red XIII was born in.

And while the FFVII Remake trilogy is definitely giving a gorgeous new coat of paint to every area and character, players who yearn for the PS1 graphics will be thrilled to see the classic models in Rebirth. Once you unlock their classic skins, Cloud, Tifa and Barrett will literally look sharper than ever.

Square Enix released an incredible demo for Rebirth following the recent PlayStation State of Play. If you haven’t played it yet, you can look forward to one to two hours of the “Nibelheim” episode, a flashback that takes place a few years before Rebirth itself. Plus, last week Square Enix updated the demo with a section that dives into Junon City, part of Rebirth’s explorable open world. The area is from a chapter that takes place a few hours into the main quest, and gives players a solid tease as to how the open-world elements work in Rebirth.

The additional content takes place in Junon’s outskirts, an area described by Square Enix as “a fortified stronghold replete with an underwater reactor”. It’s a small fragment of the full game’s world, but adds a lot of content to the demo, including Combat Assignment missions that give players a taste of what battles are like in Rebirth’s open-world environments. Plus, you can seek out treasure with your chocobo, use the new Item Transmuter to craft valuable items, and much more.

Of course, the Final Fantasy VII Rebirth demo is literally only a teaser for the final, tantalising release later this week. According to Square Enix, we can look forward to an epic 40-hour campaign across both new and recognisable locations spread across a massive world. And even FFVII veterans can expect a few surprising and thrilling twists, as like Remake, the story diverts from the original at certain points.

Rebirth’s developers have specifically said that while players will visit the same locations as the original games, “the order in which you can explore the locations is not the same as the original Final Fantasy VII, and there are some shifts in the order.” Regardless of whether you became a FFVII fan with Remake, or you’ve adored the world since the original PS1 version, it sounds like there’s a lot to be excited about when Final Fantasy VII Rebirth finally comes out!

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth will launch on 29 February, exclusively on PlayStation 5.