Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth's PC port has promise – but too many problems

We were anticipating the release of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth on PC with both anticipation and trepidation. On the one hand, this is a simply stunning game – albeit one that could stand to benefit from a wealth of improvements the PC platform could provide. On the other hand, this port follows in the wake of a truly awful PC rendition of Final Fantasy 7 Remake, which Square-Enix has essentially left to rot since the last window. So, what’s the score with Rebirth? Well, it is an improved port over Remake, for sure. One of the key problems with the PS5 version is addressed too, but even so, there are problems of various severity across the board. Ultimately, it should be a whole lot better than it is.

Let’s start by talking about the user experience from a settings and menu perspective. There’s huge scope for improvement here, starting with the presentation. This menu offers users no indication whatsoever of what the settings do or what the performance cost for tweaking them may be. Options are inconsistent and cluttered, while basic PC functions are missing. There’s no ultra-wide support, there’s no fullscreen functionality (the best you’ll get is borderless window mode) while unlocked frame-rates are also off the table: 120fps is the limit.

Square-Enix’s upscaler support is also barebones – so there’s DLSS only, in tandem with UE4’s TAA and TAAU. Fixed percentage upscale options are in place which are also limited – basically, there is no equivalent option for DLSS balanced or ultra quality modes. That means zero support for FSR and XeSS and no frame generation options either. At this point, it would be remiss of me not to point you towards Nexus Mods because – remarkably – modders have added many of these options where Square-Enix has not. Improved upscaler support, unlocked frame-rates and more – modders have delivered where Square-Enix has not.

Moving on to PlayStation 5 comparisons, we’ve got a mixed bag of results here. There is one crucial improvement to the game that PC users get – one of the key problems with the PS5 and PS5 Pro versions is the egregious pop-in of world detail. The good news is that PC users get the option to enhance level of detail, which pushes out detail and level-of-detail transitions further out to the point where they become far less noticeable. This is great news. We also spotted some slight refinements to lighting, but overall this is much the same as the console build.