Final Fantasy VII Ever Crisis drops Chapter 12 trailer ahead of shutdown

Square Enix has released a trailer for Final Fantasy VII Ever Crisis Chapter 12, titled "Battle for the Planet," ahead of its August 12 release. The update adapts the late-game events of the original 1997 PlayStation game. It brings moments like the Sister Ray firing and the looming threat of Meteor to iOS, Android, and Steam.

The footage shows the game's usual mix of visual styles. You get retro-inspired isometric dialogue scenes for standard story beats, like Cid addressing the party on the Highwind deck. This visual approach was originally billed as a modern take on the 1997 field models. The blocky character designs are updated with clean textures and lighting, but they keep the exaggerated proportions. It works surprisingly well for the quieter moments.

Then it switches to fully rendered 3D cinematics for the big set pieces. In the original PlayStation release, the Sister Ray firing was a heavily compressed FMV sequence. Seeing it rendered in a modern engine on a phone screen shows how far mobile hardware has come.

Shrinking the compilation

Ever Crisis launched in September 2023 [3] with a massive promise. It was pitched as a comprehensive retelling of the entire Final Fantasy VII timeline. That meant covering the original game, the prequel Crisis Core, and the backstory of the defunct battle royale The First Soldier. The developers at Applibot structured this as a series of episodic chapters.

Chapter 12 covers some of the most recognizable territory in the franchise. The party is dealing with the fallout of Sephiroth summoning Meteor, which forces them to figure out how Holy works. It's a dense section of the original script. The trailer highlights Bugenhagen explaining the mechanics of the planet to the group at the Forgotten Capital.

Translating these late-game PlayStation sequences into a modern mobile format requires some compromise. The overworld exploration is gone. Instead of wandering around a massive world map to find the next town, players navigate through a series of menus and linear stages to trigger the next story beat. The combat system relies heavily on the gacha mechanics, where players pull for weapons and outfits rather than characters. You can dress Cloud in a samurai outfit while he fights Diamond Weapon, provided you got lucky on the current banner.

Meteor meets server maintenance

This chapter arrives near the very end of the game's lifespan. Square Enix announced last month that Ever Crisis will shut down its servers on October 6, 2026 [1]. That gives players just under two months to play through these final story updates before the app goes offline for good.

The PC version, which hit Steam in December 2023 [2], has already halted new downloads. Existing players can still log in and play through Chapter 12. It's a shame to see the story wrap up right as it hits the climax of the original game, but gacha titles rarely get a clean ending. That's just how it goes.

Square Enix has a long history of shutting down its mobile spin-offs after a few years. Games like Record Keeper, First Soldier, and Dissidia Opera Omnia all met similar fates. Ever Crisis lasted three years. It managed to deliver a good chunk of the promised story, even if it won't be around forever. At least we get to see the Sister Ray fire one last time.