Nomura shares early Final Fantasy 7 concept art envisioning Remake‑style combat

Final Fantasy 7 character designer and co-writer Tetsuya Nomura marked the JRPG’s 29th anniversary by sharing a piece of concept art from the game’s “very earliest” plot stages, posting the image on Twitter on January 31, 2026.

Nomura said the piece had been incompletely published before, so this was “effectively its first full public appearance.” The doodles appear to show a rough sketch of Midgar’s streets with a large dragon enemy facing a sketch of Cloud, who still sports his spiky hairstyle in the drawing.

Nomura pointed out other early elements in the art: a figure on an elevated platform he identified as “Johnny the Needle,” distinct from the later Johnny in the main story, and a left‑side staircase character resembling Avalanche who was unnamed and without a defined role at that stage.

He highlighted that the concept “envisioned combat not on fixed battlefields but whilst moving through the city’s three‑dimensional environment,” a form of combat that wasn’t realised in the original game but, Nomura said, “has been achieved in the ongoing FF7 remake series.”

Nomura added that “next year looks set to be an even more special occasion” and said he would be delighted if fans continued enjoying the remake project, though he gave no further details about upcoming plans.

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