By Joe Langabeer
Final Fantasy VII was, and continues to be, one of the most influential video games in the recent history of the industry. What sets it apart from many other games is the political themes that underpin it, particularly its criticism of capitalism’s exploitation of the planet for profit. With the final instalment of the current remake series, Final Fantasy VII Revelation, being announced a few weeks ago, I wanted to re-explore those themes and how a piece of media like this influenced younger generations to become more aware of the climate crisis.
[Warning – Spoilers for the original game and remake series]
Originally released in 1997, the role-playing game has since become a major influence on many of the most important video games released over the past two decades. Whilst there would be too many games to list, even last year’s Game of the Year winner at most award ceremonies, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, was heavily inspired by Final Fantasy VII, both in its storytelling and gameplay.
Exploiting the planet
FFVII begins in a city called Midgar, where you meet a group of eco-terrorists called Avalanche seeking to blow up a reactor that is being used to harvest energy (called mako in the game) from the planet. Shinra Electric Power Company, the primary antagonists of the game, argue that these reactors are used to provide power to the people, though as the game progresses, we find there are far more nefarious uses for this energy.
Avalanche has hired Cloud, an ex-soldier who worked for Shinra until an incident at another reactor forced him to leave the company and start working as a mercenary. He begrudgingly helps blow up the reactor after his childhood friend Tifa, a member of Avalanche, asks for his help.
Avalanche is successful in destroying the reactor, though this comes at a cost when civilians are injured, and the people of Midgar begin to turn on them. Much of the criticism directed at Avalanche, however, stems from Shinra’s propaganda, as the company also controls the city’s media and military.
The original game does not really present criticisms of Avalanche’s actions until the very end, when one of Cloud’s companions and Avalanche’s most loyal member, Barret, concedes that terrorism was not the best method of dealing with Shinra. He is not opposed to fighting Shinra through political means or violence if necessary, only that they first needed to get the public on their side.
The game shows no redeeming features of Shinra, while most games would suggest that a private company like this could be reformed were it regulated or its leaders replaced with more “progressive” figures. The only way to fight Shinra is to overthrow it by force, rather than compromise with it. The game is not explicitly arguing for socialism, but it is highly critical of capitalism in its tendency to exploit both the planet and its people.
Propaganda against Avalanche
The game is also remarkably effective at portraying capitalism’s propaganda. Shinra tells the citizens of Midgar that the company benefits their livelihoods and offers the public false promises of a “Promised Land”, which does not exist.
Most of the inhabitants living under Shinra’s control reside in slums and live in destitute poverty, forced into sectors where everyone is poor, yet pitted against one another as each sector believes it is doing better than the others. Many still believe Shinra’s propaganda because Shinra has convinced them that no alternative is possible.
When Cloud and Avalanche are tasked with blowing up another reactor and fail, Shinra decides to destroy it instead, using the explosion as a means of blaming Avalanche for the attack and turning the people against them. Although they have already succeeded in creating hostility towards Avalanche, Shinra repeats the tactic at Sector 7, bringing the entire plate down onto the slums below and killing thousands of civilians.
Many members of Avalanche die in deeply emotional scenes, showing how Shinra regards human life as expendable, whether it belongs to civilians or to its own workers. The group eventually confronts President Shinra, whose motivations reveal the true purpose behind the exploitation of the planet.
Capitalism’s motivation is profit
The original 1997 game does not spend a great deal of time discussing President Shinra’s motivations for harvesting the planet, but the 2020 remake expands on them. There is no grand scheme, no diabolical plan to destroy the universe, but one simple motive: profit. That is all he cares about.
This makes Barret even angrier, as President Shinra values profit above both the planet and human life. Barret attempts to restrain the president, but he is immediately killed by Sephiroth, another former SOLDIER, who then takes over as the main antagonist of the series.
President Shinra’s son, Rufus, inherits the company and proves even worse than his father. He will stop at nothing to strip the planet of its resources, while also exploiting the culture and history of the Ancients to expand Shinra’s empire.
Ultimately, the political message of the game is that it does not matter who runs Shinra. The company itself is built upon exploiting the planet and its inhabitants, and it will not stop until it is defeated. By the end of the original game, Shinra is effectively destroyed as the planet’s own forces rise to defend it.
I unfortunately never played the game when it first came out. I was only one year old when it was originally released, and it passed me by until the remake arrived during the pandemic. Playing it recently, however, I was astonished by how overtly political it was in its critique of capitalism, alongside its call to overthrow companies that seek to colonise the planet for its resources.
It may not phrase it in those terms, as it is a fantasy game after all, but it is difficult to ignore the political themes it presents and how bold they were for their time in calling out capitalism’s role in the climate crisis. At the time, these ideas were confined to the fringes of socialist politics, though they have since become far more prominent within the movement.
Good development
There was an interesting discussion by Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier on his YouTube channel about the rapid development of the current Final Fantasy VII remake series, which, over the past six years, has been one of the few major development teams consistently releasing high-budget video games in a reasonable amount of time, while many modern games now spend five to ten years in production.
He suggests in the video, based on an interview with the game’s director, Naoki Hamaguchi, that the reason they were able to make these games in quick succession was that they retained 95% of their staff between each instalment. The video game industry has been laying off workers for years, with even more substantial cuts recently being made by some of the biggest publishers, including Microsoft and Sony.
Hamaguchi argues that this does not help the development of video games, particularly those seeking to tell a continuous story. These games have been produced quickly and to a high standard because the developers already understood the game’s design from working on previous entries, alongside sharing a collective vision that kept everyone moving in the same direction.
Hamaguchi has bucked the trend of many other development studios and proves that people are not expendable, as much as the executives at some of the biggest publishers like to believe. Unfortunately, Square Enix, the company he works for and which produces Final Fantasy, has also taken part in the wave of layoffs across the games industry. Given Hamaguchi’s influence within gaming, it would be welcome to see him speak more openly against those decisions.
The most crucial point, however, is that if you keep your workers, you produce better-quality games in quicker succession. Many of these companies are cutting jobs not because they are struggling, but because they are making less profit than they used to. It demonstrates that great games are created not by companies themselves, but by the labour of the people who make them, and that is what gamers should value.
Final Fantasy VII was not created simply to make a profit, at least not from the perspective of the people who made it. It was created with artistic intent, seeking to be groundbreaking at a time when few games told such ambitious and political stories or explored ideas surrounding the climate crisis.
It showcased innovations in gameplay, graphics and artistic direction that could only have come from talented creative workers, not shareholders. Under a model of public ownership based on socialist principles, one that prioritises creative work over short-term returns, more games could be developed with that same artistic ambition. That is something worth fighting for.
[Featured image: Screenshot from the title screen of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, the second instalment of the remake trilogy]
