"Even after all we've done, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth's open world is still alive and well," mused Aeris Gainsborough after seeing the debut trailer released at the Summer Game Fest.

"It may look that way," notes the strange fire dog Red 13 to her. Especially in regards to Square Enix's treatment of fans of the PC version.

Before I get into a real lather about how much this irritates me, I should make it clear that if the game wasn't so good, I wouldn't be so angry. Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is the second of what is said to be a trilogy of remakes of the PSone classic. The vistas are enticing, though I wondered if Gaia's far-flung locations could match the cool factor of the dieselpunk metropolis of Midgar when blown up with modern rendering technology. I'm also looking forward to seeing how another "NieR"-like continuation of the remake trilogy will play out.

And with any luck, we'll get to it sometime in 2025." Available. early 2024. on two discs. on PS5," the trailer proudly proclaims at the end. Michael Bruce says, "Dead pigeons, don't eat them!" as he opens a brown paper bag scribbled with "I don't know what I was expecting.

The technological barrier between PC and consoles is lower than ever, and not that Square Enix is part of Sony or anything, but like clockwork, the publisher's premium JRPGs are released first on PlayStation and then six months to a year later on PC. It's somewhat of a treadmill, with funky options menus and shader comp stutters that never seem to go away.

And for PS5 players, the "on two discs" line is a promise, a throwback to the days when Squaresoft moved from Nintendo to Sony and released high-capacity JRPGs on a ridiculous number of CD ROMs. Square Enix seems to boast that "our JRPGs are so huge they can't fit on a single disc," which sounds threatening to me as a PC player. I'm staring at triple-digit gigs of glowing textures being shoved onto my hard drive by my favorite local exclusive ISP, Comcast. I will never buy a game on disk again.

And it doesn't look like it will get better anytime soon. Square Enix is set to replace its NFT-loving president, Yosuke Matsuda, at its upcoming shareholders meeting, and his chosen successor, Takashi Kiryu, seems to be another cryptocurrenacist. Come on, Square, the Web3 revolution isn't coming through that door, and there is a dedicated fanbase of PC players who are willing to give themselves up for Final Fantasy here and now, so why not let them play the game?