While many are excited about the return of Yuffie and the new party member Sonon, others are more interested in the white-haired antagonist who shows up briefly at the end of the Intergrade trailer. Those who've played through some of the other games in the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII should have recognized him as Weiss the Immaculate; the sadistic commander of a top-secret division of Shinra known as Deepground. He made his first appearance in Dirge of Cerberus and also has a brief Cameo in Crisis Core. Who exactly is he though? Read on to find out.
Fleeting though his appearance in the trailer may be, you may well have noticed that Weiss bears a notable resemblance to another of the series' main antagonists; and there's a good reason for this. Just like Sephiroth, Weiss is a product of The Jenova Project meaning that he too carries Jenova cells in his body. He's a member of the elite Shinra fighting force SOLDIER too; as evidenced by the pale glow of his eyes that comes from being infused with mako energy. Weiss isn't just any old SOLDIER though. Far from it, in fact.
He holds the esteemed First Class rank and is the leader of a powerful and influential group of SOLDIER members known as the Tsviets. After defeating its previous commander, the group assumed control of Shinra's top-secret military organization, Deepground, and continue to operate out of the mysterious Mako Reactor 0. His inclusion in the Intergrade trailer suggests that this is the very same reactor that Yuffie and Sonon will soon be attempting to infiltrate. If that's the case, they may end up finding more than just materia and mako there.
Despite what its name may suggest, there's a lot more to Mako Reactor 0 than just harvesting the planet's energy. It's located beneath the Shinra building and originally housed a medical facility that treated injured members of SOLDIER. Over time, however, its purpose shifted to mako research and human experimentation. Weiss was injected with Jenova cells as part of the project (well, technically Genesis cells, but that's a whole other story) and his younger brother, Nero, was born there as well. Due to the mako experiments, the brothers' mother was pulled into another dimension shortly after giving birth leaving them both at the mercy of Hojo and Shinra.
Thanks to his training and superhuman powers, Weiss is an accomplished fighter and wields his pair of distinctive gunblades to devastating effective. He's incredibly sadistic and places very little value on human life. He does share a strong bond with his brother though and so it would be fairly surprising if Nero doesn't also show up at some point throughout Intergrade. There are several other known members of the Tsviets who could join the brothers, although it's possible that Square Enix will opt not to include the likes of Shelke, Rosso and Azul so as to avoid overwhelming players with new faces. If the trailer is anything to go by, things are likely to be confusing enough already.
"Let the hunt begin" may simply have been included in reference to Yuffie's pursuit of treasure, but it likely has a far more sinister meaning. As some will already know, this is not the first time that Weiss has declared a hunt. In Derge of Cerberus, he calls for 'the tainted' to be hunted down and brutally exterminated in order to cleanse the world. The problem is though, DoC takes place three years after the events of Final Fantasy VII which suggests that the Final Fantasy VII timeline could soon become even more complicated than it already is. It certainly wouldn't be the first time that Nomura and his team have played around with the established timeline while developing FF7R either.
In a recent interview with Famitsu, Nomura explained that the team wanted to include another formidable villain to ease some of the burden on Sephiroth. They eventually settled on Weiss, who also happens to be one of the many characters found throughout the Final Fantasy VII games that was originally designed by Nomura himself. He also mentioned that he'd wanted the team to include Weiss as a secret boss in the PS4 version of the remake and that he was intrigued by the possibility of Cloud and Weiss finally squaring off after almost two decades. This last part raises the possibility of the Tsviets leader also appearing in part two of the remake, although whether or not he's still alive to do so will depend on how his upcoming battle with Yuffie and Sonon plays out. Luckily, we shouldn't have to wait too much longer to find out for ourselves.
Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade will be coming to PlayStation 5 on June 10 2021.