If there’s one thing that Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth players can agree on, it’s that the game has far too much Chadley in it. While he was a valuable source of Summons in Final Fantasy 7 Remake, in Rebirth, he’s an omnipresent voice tied to almost every open-world activity thanks to the “CHAD Module” you’re burdened with early in the game. Will the Chad be back in Final Fantasy 7 Revelation? Unfortunately, yes. Will he have an expanded role in the game’s story this time? It sure sounds like it, as game director Naoki Hamaguchi teased that Chadley won’t be sitting on the sidelines for the final chapter of the remake trilogy.
“Chadley is actually going to have his own room on the Highwind, that serves as his laboratory. In there, Chadley is doing his own research about the meteor,” Hamaguchi said to GameSpot, while confirming that Chadley’s AI assistant Mai will serve as the game’s field guide. “In terms of the role that Chadley had in Rebirth, where he would guide you around the various areas and continents that you see on the world map, that role has been given to Mai in Final Fantasy 7 Revelation. Chadley, in Revelation, he’s going to have a slightly different role where we’ll see a bit more of him in the main story.”
For the players who are fans of Chadley and Mai, the duo will still have several “humorous and adorable” moments in the game, and Hamaguchi added that Chadley’s role had steadily grown since his introduction in Final Fantasy 7 Remake.
“When we were working on the development of the first installment, [battle director Teruki] Endo brought this idea to me: to battle the various summons in sort of a challenge content for the players. And when we were thinking about how we could make that happen, we looked at Chadley. ‘Oh, so this guy is an NPC in the Midgar slums, he gives side quests, and he actually has a background from a lore standpoint. That kind of made it easier for us to utilize that setting in the lore to build in that combat simulator, so that’s kind of how it started. And then when we started Rebirth, we looked at Chadley again. ‘Hey, it might be better if we have this little supportive character role that kind of guides you through the open world exploration.’ And so we brought him back, and now with Revelation, we’re like being able to bring him back again for the main story.”
One of the main complaints about Chadley was the frequent phone calls from the CHAD Module that you couldn’t avoid. This would result in players also being stuck in place while Chadley yammered on about various topics, interrupting the flow of exploring the terrain around you. Fortunately, you could skip through the chatter by holding down a button, or you could fast-forward through his lines of dialogue if you wanted to speed-read your way through his non-essential prattling.
Will Mai be bugging players in Chadley’s place then? It certainly sounds like it–she did distract you during Fiend Intel tasks in Rebirth with her running commentary–and if you’re going to be forced to listen to field notes from someone, she’s easily a far better choice than Chadley.
Final Fantasy 7 Revelation launches in April 2027 for PC, PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and Switch 2. For more on the game, you can read up on how Hamaguchi was inspired by The Witcher 3 and how snowboarding is making its long-awaited debut in the threequel.
Interview conducted by Emma Fyffe.