Apex Legends and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, how it was developed

From January 9th to January 30th, Apex Legends will feature an unprecedented collaboration with weapons such as the Buster Sword R2R5, material upgrades, aesthetic items and more within the popular Battle Royale. We had the opportunity to interview David Duong, Senior Director Game Product Management of the Respawn Entertainment team, and Yuma Watanabe, FINAL FANTASY VII REMAKE Project Senior Assistant Producer / FINAL FANTASY VII REBIRTH Collaboration Producer, about this unexpected event.

How did you decide which Final Fantasy VII Rebirth character would go with which legend? What were the criteria for that decision?

David Doung: If I could sum it up, what we tried to do is celebrate Final Fantasy and create a cosmetic line inspired by their characters and themes in the franchise. For the Legend skins this meant that we were looking less to “integrate” their characters 1:1 in our game and were focused more on creating content that paid homage to and was “inspired by” the characters and their iconic looks. We tried to find characters that were a good personality match between Apex and Final Fantasy and then the team thought through “if this Apex Legend was in this character from Final Fantasy, what would they look like and how would we bring those recognizable aspects to life?”

We wanted our players to instantly look at the skins and say “that makes sense why they decided ‘x’ should be paying homage to ‘y’ as a part of the event”. It’s really hard for me to choose a favorite because they are all SO GOOD and the team did an amazing job bringing them all to life. If you are forcing me to choose one, it would have to be Valkyrie as Yuffie / Wutai Ninja for Legend skins, and my favorite Weapon Skin would be the Ifrit-themed Havoc.

Yuma Watanabe: We thought it would be best to have the Apex team create what they wanted to create, rather than SQUARE ENIX dictating the selection of what kind of skins should be created for which characters. So generally, the SQUARE ENIX side was committed to the position of supervising the skins themselves.

As an aside, in the early planning stages, there were proposals for skins based not on characters such as Cloud, Tifa, and Aerith, but on job titles such as Shinra Troop, Turks, and SOLDIER. Personally, I like Newcastle’s Barret-themed skin. For the weapon skin, I’d say the Tifa-themed Wingman. The “YEAH!” on the grip is a nice touch!

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Will there be more legends with Final Fantasy VII Rebirth skins in the future?

David Doung:  We don’t have anything planned, but never say never! We’re always looking for opportunities to surprise and delight players.

Yuma Watanabe: Currently, there are no specific plans to do so. We hope that people will first enjoy the Apex x FINAL FANTASY VII REBIRTH collaboration, and if we receive many requests as a result, there may be the possibility of interesting developments in the future.

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Will there be easter eggs from the new Final Fantasy VII Rebirth?

David Duong: Only way to find out is to play through the event and see what you may find, but we cannot confirm nor deny!

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Will there be any kind of reference to the Summons from Final Fantasy?

David Duong: Yes! We have four new Legendary Weapon skins that will be a part of the event that are inspired by Ifrit, Shiva, Bahamut, and Leviathan! Our Red Materia in the Final Fantasy Takeover mode will also let you summon a Nessie carrying her very own Buster Sword R2R5 for you to do battle with!

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Yuma Watanabe: As the Apex team has answered, the summon elements are reflected in the appearance of the weapon skins or appear in the limited-time mode as a

summon materia function.  Other than that, I think players will enjoy the summon elements included here and there in stickers and holosprays.

Apex Legends is a free-to-play game that you can find on PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PC and Nintendo Switch.