The rally that Square Enix called upon the Final Fantasy VII community worldwide was downright crazy. On World Photography Day, the official Final Fantasy VII Twitter account sent a message from “Cloud and the gang” wishing everyone a happy day; in the message, they also urged players in all corners of the globe to share some of their very best in-game shots. Responders abided: the replies were flooded with hundreds of gorgeous, hilarious, and surprisingly touching screenshots of Final Fantasy VII Remake and the just-released FF7 Rebirth.
So, what is this chain of events? Well, the official tweet was an invitation, a rallying cry to all virtual photographers. And these came with a splendid group shot of the main crew, inviting all to post their best virtual photographs. And just so- they did not hold back. The thread exploded as players quickly grabbed their photo modes to share everything and anything: from epic fights against Sephiroth to quiet little moments between characters. It is such a massive enormous digital scrapbook of the highlights of why people love this game so much. It is just beautiful to scroll through from a local standpoint.
Imagine a few hundred responses in just a matter of a few hours! The reply volume is mind-bogglingly huge, with users posting multithread tweets featuring their favorite snapshots. One user, @Magic9BallSays reported that it is “difficult to choose just a few photos,” which seemed to be the common theme. Everybody has a massive gallery saved, and this was their opportunity for showing it off. Another user, @izumipaper, agreed, tagging their post with #FF7Rebirth and #WorldPhotoDay to show off several stunning landscape shots of the massive world of the game.
But variety is everything. Not just pretty sunsets and character portraits, of course. Action shots come with motion blur from a movie-only—one with tremendous flow, @jvt831 responded to @Premiereavune: “Motion blur at its finest. Beautiful. Very nice. I like 👍.” There are glorious funny moments, too-many one of @corrientevital_ who shared a shot of Kyrie with the caption ‘Haha Kyrie 😂😂.’ Then there are heart-breaking ones, like an image @Proper419 shared of Barret and Cloud paying respects to Dyne, which @Magic9BallSays called out as emotional.
It really showed how deep the connection is to these characters. People aren’t just snapping pictures of a video game; they’re capturing moments from a story they care about. @Phyerx shared a whole thread of images simply captioned “I love them so much,” which pretty much sums up the whole event. It is a love letter to the game through screenshots.
Then, of course, comes the unexpected weird moment. @iCloud_VII starts into a strange rant about something completely off-topic, which really just emphasizes the point that most of the people hanging around were there for all the right reasons: gaming pressure.
