Square Enix's battle royale spin-off Final Fantasy 7: The First Soldier has taken a lot of fans by surprise. Announced alongside other Final Fantasy 7 related projects like Final Fantasy 7: Ever Crisis and Final Fantasy 7 Remake Intergrade, The First Soldier acts as a prequel to the original JRPG, with its gameplay being similar to other battle royales like Fortnite and PUBG Battlegrounds. With the game now on its second season of content, it places a lot of focus on the iconic summon Bahamut, among other additions like the Dragoon class.
The start of Final Fantasy 7: The First Soldier's second season also coincides with the start of a new event. This event will provide players plenty of content that originated from Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7. The game already offers players many references to the extended FF7 continuity, so it's no surprise that it's now paying tribute to the prequel focused on Zack Fair, a character integral to the original game. This can be seen with cosmetics and emotes that are based on Tifa and Zack's appearances in Crisis Core that are available in the game right now. However, another skin set will be available soon, based on another integral character from Crisis Core.
This costume set will be based on Genesis Rhapsodos, the main antagonist of Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7. He was a First Class SOLDIER that was also created from the Jenova Project, much like series antagonist Sephiroth. The character is dressed in a similar fashion to his silver-haired compatriot, with a large red and black jacket, and a long red rapier. Unlike Sephiroth, however, he suffers from cellular degradation due to the imperfect implementation of Jenova's cells, which results in his villainous turn.
The announcement was posted to The First Soldier's official Twitter, showing off what this costume will look like on the playable avatars. Known as the "Premium Shinra Packs (CC FF7) B" set, it will give items based on Genesis, such as his crimson coat and weapons based off of his sword. This cosmetic set will be coming to Final Fantasy 7: The First Soldier at a future date.
Outside a handful of other spin-offs, this cosmetic skin is one of the few times that Genesis has been acknowledged in recent Final Fantasy 7 games after Crisis Core. Most of the extended Final Fantasy 7 continuity including the remake make slight allusions to Genesis, but never outright included him. That said, Final Fantasy 7: Ever Crisis is a mobile retelling that will be covering every facet of the FF7 universe including Crisis Core, so he'll be making a return in that game at least.
Final Fantasy 7: The First Soldier is available on mobile.