How to play the Final Fantasy VII Remake right now

It seems like everyone’s playing the Final Fantasy VII Remake right now. Regular people are starting to write reviews and share gameplay videos. The kind of content you’d expect to see from game journalists who have early editions to help build anticipation for the April 10 launch. The hype train is fully loaded and leaving the station. Where did all these people get the Final Fantasy VII Remake? Why aren’t you one of them?

There’s a couple of ways to get the Final Fantasy VII Remake right now, but you’re not going to like them. You’ll either need to stop into a retail store in Australia or be a lucky European with a preorder.

The most important thing to know is that these early releases only pertain to physical copies. Digital downloads aren’t affected.

On March 30, Square Enix announced that they’d be shipping physical copies of the game to Europe and Australia earlier than usual. The coronavirus has caused delays and uncertainty in global shipping, so to make sure most players get their copies on or before April 10, they moved their ship date up. Some players in Europe are reporting that they’ve already received their copies.

As a result of having the game in stock sooner, EB Games in Australia has broken street date. It’s available via their website through Click-and-Collect, so if you happen to be in Australia right now, you can have a copy waiting for you at your local store. Transcontinental travel has never been cheaper, but we’d have to recommend that you avoid making a trip to Australia just to hit up EB Games.

Square Enix implores those who have the game early to avoid spoiling the game for others. “If you get the game early, please think of others and don’t spoil it for them,” their announcement read. “We know there are potential spoilers that have been out there for over two decades as the original Final Fantasy VII was released in 1997. But Final Fantasy VII Remake is a new game that still has many surprises for everyone.”

For the rest of us, we’ll just have to wait. April 10 isn’t that far away. There are plenty of other games to keep you entertained in the meantime.