Tetsuya Nomura Shares Early Concept Art from Final Fantasy 7, Highlighting Combat Ideas Later Realized in FF7 Remake

JRPG legend Tetsuya Nomura recently marked the impressive 29th anniversary of Final Fantasy 7 by sharing a glimpse of one of the game’s earliest concept art pieces. This artwork showcases a combat style that didn’t fully come to life until the release of Final Fantasy 7 Remake many years later.

Nomura took to social media to express his excitement, stating, “This year marks the 29th anniversary of Final Fantasy 7, so next year looks set to be an even more special occasion. In celebration of this milestone, I sought out some past concept art and comments to share.” He chose a piece that had not been fully published before, making this its first complete public reveal.

The early sketches, created during the initial plot development, depict a rough version of Midgar’s streets, featuring a large dragon enemy confronting a similarly sketched Cloud, who already sported his iconic spiky hair.

Nomura elaborated, “The figure aiming a gun on the elevated platform is ‘Johnny the Needle’, a character from the original plot. He is entirely different from the Johnny in the main story, with his traits later influencing Reno. On the left staircase, there’s a character resembling Avalanche, who was still unnamed and lacked a defined role at this point.”

He also noted, “Unlike previous Final Fantasy titles, this concept envisioned combat not on static battlefields but while navigating the city’s three-dimensional environment. While this approach wasn’t realized in the original game, it has been successfully implemented in the ongoing FF7 remake series. I hope you continue to enjoy this grand project, where elements that were technically unachievable in the original are now being brought to life in the remake.”