FFVII: Rebirth is wonderful on the PS5, but what about on PC?
- Camila Domingues
- Jan 22
- 4 min read
Last year, Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth blessed our PS5s and kept us all glued to our screens as we navigated the second part of the Final Fantasy VII remake trilogy. Now, come January 23rd (yes, that's tomorrow), PC gamers will get to experience it as well.
I was lucky enough to snag an advanced copy for the PS5 last year, so while this will be another wonderful review of this super fun game, this will focus on how the game runs on the PC as well as on the Steam Deck, and how it compares to its PlayStation 5 counterpart instead of the story/game itself. If you want to know how I felt about Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth as a game, you can read my honest review on App Trigger from last year.
Now, let's talk PC.
Specs
For the best experience, it's recommended to have the following specs:
Graphic settings: 60 FPS/1080p, "medium" (or at least 30 FPS/1080p, "low")
OS: Windows 11 64-bit (or at least Windows 10 64-bit)
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600, AMD Ryzen 7 3700X, Intel Core i7-8700, Intel Core i5-10400 (or at least AMD Ryzen 5 1400 or Intel Core i3-8100)
GPU: AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT or NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 (or AMR Radeon RX 6600, Intel Arc A580, or NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060)
Memory: 16GB
Storage: 155 GB SSD
Please note that if you're using a 4K monitor, 12 GB is the minimum recommended. If you're fancy and you want your Ultra Specs, here they are:
60 FPS/2160p, "high" graphic settings
Windows 11 64-bit
AMD Ryzen 7 5700X or Intel Core i7-10700
AMD Radeon RX 7900XTX or NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080
16 GB RAM, especially if using a 4K monitor
155 GB SSD
My PC was built in late 2020 and, for the last year, has been giving me some problems. I'm pretty sure my three fans are dying (or they're at least constantly screeching at me from my tower) and I've experienced major lag during gaming and while just trying to browse the internet. I do own a Steam Deck, which has been my absolute savior while I didn't trust my PC to run a game, so I planned on using that to review the game as a Plan B. Luckily, after a lot of troubleshooting I've been doing on it lately (looks at my new three fans that will be installed shortly), my PC has been able to play Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth with absolutely no issues.
As a comparison to the recommended specs, here is what my PC is currently running:
Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
16 GB RAM, 1 TB SSD, Acer Predator 4K monitor
Intel Core i5-10600K
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2700
Performance on the PC
First off, if you haven't played Rebirth on the PS5 yet, your eyes are in for a treat. From personal experience, game is a visually stunning piece of art, with uninterrupted fluidity during combat, regular game play, and cut scenes/cinematic sequences. The graphics on the PS5 are stunning and the detail in the design of every single character and location is impeccable.
I was so happy to find it was the same with the PC counterpart. From the moment the game loads until I quit the game hours later, I was constantly treated with gorgeous graphics - the scenes with close-ups on Tifa's face were simply the best because of the sheer amount of details in her brown eyes, for example. Each camera movement and transition is smooth, transitioning from the game to the menu to submenus, then to the map, the quests - there was not a hitch in the performance of the game.
The controls are also great - though I did have to fight with my DualSense PS5 controller to make it stop glitching, and I'm sure that's something with my PC because once I plugged up the DualSense instead of using it via Bluetooth, I had no more issues. Just as with the PS5, the controls are reactive and pretty straight forward.
Flawless execution, perfectly fluid animation and transitions, and controls that don't lag and are true to the PlayStation game. Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth gets a 10/10 on the PC.
Performance on the Steam Deck
Of course I had to try the game on the Steam Deck as well.
While it's no surprise that the quality difference between an actual PC and the Steam Deck is pretty significant, it still makes me sad when I expect pretty games to look pretty on this handheld and they just... don't.
Unfortunately, Rebirth also falls victim to being too recent and having such demanding graphics and it does not look half as good on the Steam Deck. The biggest culprit in cut scenes and cinematics besides the obvious texture changes in the background: the hair. It looks so fuzzy, like the characters desperately need to get a couple of inches chopped off. The texture just simply does not match the rest of the graphics - even with them not looking as good as they do on the PC.
You can mess with the settings and set the graphics to Medium or Low, and set other ones to Medium or Low as well as they are automatically set to High, but the end results are pretty much the same. I feel like I'm playing on a Nintendo Cube or something similar. Which, again - it's the Steam Deck. It is definitely nowhere as powerful as a machine, but give us the convenience of being able to play our games away from home (or when your PC acts up, like mine did for about a year).
Controls-wise, it's still just as perfect as the PC and PlayStation, with no delays or lag in direction changing or during battles. I would consider playing Rebirth on the Steam Deck as the last option to play this beautiful game, but only because of the graphics. The game itself functions perfectly on the Deck, I'm just being extra. Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth gets a 8/10 on the Steam Deck.
All-in-all, I am very pleased with how Rebirth runs and performs on the PC. It's smooth, fast, and gorgeous, and allows players to fully immerse in a really fun and emotionally gripping story. Definitely worth it.
Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth will be available on Steam tomorrow, Thursday, January 23rd. You can pre-order it on the Steam Store now.
Pixigonal was given a free copy of Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth on PC in exchange for an honest review.
Comments