Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth Has Bad News for Reno Fans

Summary

Tetsuya Nomura has confirmed that Reno's screen time and role will be reduced in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, the second part of the FF7 remake.
Reno's reduced role is due to the passing of his former Japanese voice actor, Keiji Fujiwara, and the team's decision to use archived audio recordings for the character.
Nomura promises that Reno will have a larger role in the third game of the remake trilogy once they find a replacement voice actor.

Tetsuya Nomura confirmed that fan-favorite character Reno's screen time and role will be reduced in the upcoming Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, the second part of the episodic FF7 remake. Fans finally got a release date for Rebirth earlier this month at the September 2023 PlayStation State of Play, along with several aspects of the upcoming remake. This includes a brief look at highly anticipated elements of the game, such as the Gold Saucer, fan favorite characters like Vincent Valentine, and the possible revised narrative that was introduced for the remake.

One thing that some fans may be curious about are the Turks, a portion of Shinra that the player will run into who are more prevalent in the portion that Rebirth covers. Final Fantasy 7's Turks consists of fan favorite characters like Tseng, Rude, and Reno, with the latter two having boss fights in the first part of the remake as well. While these characters are beloved in some fashion, Reno in particular will have a reduced role in the second part, according to creative director Tetsuya Nomura.

In an interview with Dengeki Online and the developers, one of the questions asked was the presence of Reno in the remake, due to his former Japanese voice actor, Keiji Fujiwara. Back in 2020, shortly after the original release of Final Fantasy 7 Remake, Keiji Fujiwara had passed away due to his ongoing battle with cancer. Fujiwara had voiced Reno ever since Final Fantasy 7: Advent Children and had reprised the role for the remake. Nomura confirmed that Fujiwara will continue voicing the character in Rebirth using archived audio recordings from past works involving the character.

Nomura states that they had received the news regarding Fujiwara's passing before the development team started recording for Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. He noted that they couldn't bring themselves to recast the character immediately, and out of respect for the late actor, rewrote the scenario to use his past recordings instead. This method, however, had the side effect of reducing Reno's role within Rebirth's story.

Nomura notes that Reno's reduced screentime will likely disappoint fans, especially those overseas. However, he promises that the third entry of the Final Fantasy 7 remake will give Reno a bigger presence after they have found a replacement.

Reno's presence in the original game past Midgar had him fighting Cloud's party outside Gongaga, along with him appearing in the optional Wutai sidequest. Rebirth, however, will not be covering the latter, as it will be saved and scaled-up for the third part of the remake trilogy, which is likely where his role would be expanded. For the time being, Reno will likely have his appearances kept to a minimum in Rebirth.

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth will launch on February 29, 2024 for PS5.