Speaking with Press Start, Director Naoki Hamaguchi talked about the world map, revealing that the team took the map of the original game and recreated it all in a one-to-one scale, meaning that all towns, dungeons, and other points of interest are now included in the same space as one seamless map. Elaborating further on how players will get to explore such a vast world, Hamaguchi said that while the whole of the map will be available right from the start, the size of the world will actually grow as players make progress and learn new abilities that let them access previously unreachable areas.

While the latest gameplay footage, and an official document, hinted at this type of recreation of the original world map, it is nice to get a confirmation that Final Fantasy VII Rebirth won’t feel as restrained as its predecessor in terms of exploration. Remake, in my opinion, managed to represent the scale of Midgar rather well, but the excessive linearity ended up hurting the experience a bit.