Final Fantasy 7 Remake: A revamped version of Queen’s Blood is on the cards for the trilogy’s last part, director suggests
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth director Naoki Hamaguchi recently hinted that the title’s popular card game Queen’s Blood is likely to return in the upcoming final part of the Final Fantasy VII Remake trilogy. Apparently, the developers are contemplating a new, revamped version of Queen’s Blood.
Making its first appearance as one of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth’s many minigames earlier this year, Queen’s Blood quickly gained fans. The strategic card game can be played against many NPCs that you meet on your journey, and there’s even a card tournament on board the cruise ship to Costa Del Sol. Players must build up their own deck of 15 cards and use the different abilities of each card to their advantage to win rows on the board. Although simple at first glance, Queen’s Blood is complicated by cards that can raise the value of or even destroy cards placed on other squares. There are also cards with numerical values that are affected by other actions on the board- meaning that players must pay attention to many elements at once.
The news about the future of Queen’s Blood was revealed in a Q&A session with Final Fantasy VII Rebirth’s developers at Otakon 2024, held in Washington DC from August 3 to 5. In response to a fan’s question about whether Queen’s Blood will get a physical version, Naoki Hamaguchi replied that he has received many requests for this. However, he revealed that he would like to prioritize working on a new version of Queen’s Blood, with the aim of putting it in the final part of the Final Fantasy VII Remake Trilogy- much to the excitement of the audience. In the same Q&A, producer Yoshinori Kitase revealed that Queen’s Blood is his favorite minigame in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth.
The Final Fantasy series has a history of card minigames which have become popular with players, such as Triple Triad in Final Fantasy VIII and Tetra Master in Final Fantasy IX. FFVIII’s Triple Triad got a physical version made around the time of its release in 1999, and has made a reappearance in Final Fantasy XIV with new rules added.
Another card minigame that has proven a big hit with players is of course Gwent from CD Projekt Red’s The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. Gwent is so addictive that players often jokingly refer to The Witcher 3 as a card game with an open world RPG attached. CD Projekt Red took advantage of this by making a standalone online version of Gwent, which greatly increased the decks and types of cards available to players- prolonging the card game’s popularity (interestingly The Witcher 3 was also an inspiration for some aspects of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth).
So, what is on the cards for Square Enix’s Queen’s Blood? In addition to the recent revelation at Otakon, Hamaguchi previously addressed the future of Queen’s Blood in an interview with Redbull, stating that “we want to consider further expansions” for the card game. It will be interesting to see if Queen’s Blood turns up in the last part of the Final Fantasy VII Remake trilogy with some new rules or card types. Perhaps Square Enix could add in the ability to play against real people online, or shake up the gameplay with a different board layout?
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is currently available on PS5.
