Square Enix said they’d ship copies of Final Fantasy 7 Remake early in Europe and Australia and now it’s already turning up in shops in Oz.
A company like Square Enix is usually very precious about its release dates and given Final Fantasy 7 Remake isn’t supposed to be out until next Friday, 10 April you wouldn’t normally expect to see it anywhere before that.
But on Monday they announced that they’d try to make boxed copies available a little earlier in Europe and Australia, because otherwise delays relating to the coronavirus would risk it turning up late.
And they weren’t joking either, as now boxed versions of the game are freely available at Australian stores such as EB Games and JB Hi-Fi (no, we don’t know what stores like that are doing open).
At first, we took it to be an April Fool’s Day joke but unless these photos are the most complex, and pointless, prank ever the game really is out and available for everyone to buy.
There’s further evidence it’s real in that Square Enix has asked fans who get the game early not to discuss spoilers online, either those relating to the original plot or any of the new elements added just for the remake.
So far there’s no sign of advance copies being available anywhere in Europe, but they could well turn up at any moment, as Square Enix already admitted to making ‘the decision to ship the game far earlier than usual to Europe’.
Their logic is that it was better to give some people the game early than have others get it late (and potentially cancel their pre-order) so hopefully all this works out for the best for everyone.
Whether it’ll happen for any other games in the coming months is unclear, but Capcom hasn’t announced anything similar for this Friday’s Resident Evil 3.
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