Square Enix announced the Final Fantasy 7 art book, Final Fantasy VII Remake: Material Ultimania, will actually be released in English outside Japan. The FF7R art book will be launching on December 7, 2021, and will be available physically and digitally.

What's the new Final Fantasy 7 Remake art book?

Final Fantasy VII Remake: Material Ultimania is what we commonly call an official guidebook in Japan. If you've never heard of these, instead of compiling information you can already find in the game itself,  they detail materials used by the developers to make the game. Guidebooks are regularly released for anime series for example, including storyboards and the like used by the animators.

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In the case of the Final Fantasy 7 Remake Material Ultimania art book, this means rough drafts of character designs, storyboards for the cutscenes, CG artwork, Liner Notes from the sound staff, and references for the characters’ costumes. All accompanied by comments from the developers. The book will include brand new interviews of the main characters’ seiyuu - Japanese voice actresses and actors. It’s the definitive FFVIIR book to own for any otaku. You can check out a preview of the book here.

Final Fantasy 7 Remake Material Ultimania can be ordered on several shops listed on Square Enix's official page. The book will be 336 pages. The physical edition is $40, while the digital edition will be sold for $26. Note that the cover art for the English version of the book is not final. The cover used right now is the same as the Japanese one, a new illustration of FF7 protagonist Cloud, by Tetsuya Nomura.

Personally speaking, I'd like to point out Final Fantasy VII Remake: Material Ultimania was first released in Japan on October 29, 2020. Meaning we're getting the book translated in English more than a year later. However, we need to be thankful to Square Enix and the book's translators, as this is better late than never. Twenty years ago, there were very few occasions of books like these leaving Japan.

Final Fantasy 7 Remake Intergrade, the PS5 version of the remake, will be launching worldwide on June 10, 2021. It will most notably add a new Episode featuring Yuffie Kisaragi from the original game.