Dataminers have found reference to a Steam release on the Epic Games Store version of Final Fantasy 7 Remake.
It’s been an undeniably rough launch for Final Fantasy 7 Remake on PC. From being priced at $70 to being called one of the worst triple-A PC ports available, things aren’t looking great for Cloud’s PC iteration.
One of the biggest points of contention is that Final Fantasy 7 Remake was made exclusive to the Epic Games Store, similarly to all of the Kingdom Hearts releases, essentially forcing anyone who wants to play on PC to use Epic’s own storefront, which only recently added a shopping cart.
However, it’s looking like that might not always be the case, or at least that it might have not been at one point in time. As posted on the GamingLeaksAndRumours subreddit, extracted data from the Unreal Engine pak files has revealed that it was originally added to the Steam Database on October 28, a whole month before it was added to Epic’s backend.
Alongside this, datamining has revealed the game’s Steam ID to be 1462040. If that just looks like a bunch of numbers to you, same, but it’s interesting because that ID hasn’t been taken down from the Steam database, even after Remake’s release on the Epic Games Store.
Twitter user AtelierTool, who datamined and found the Steam ID, has stated, “I can confirm that #FinalFantasy VII Remake is planned to release on Steam after Epic Games exclusive contract end.” It's not clear if this is just based on seeing the Steam ID and Unreal Engine data, but it's looking a bit more possible thanks to the leaks.
Some are now speculating that Final Fantasy 7 Remake might have a year exclusivity deal on Epic Game Store, similarly to what it had on the PlayStation. However, it's worth noting that even though that exclusivity period is up on PlayStation, the game still hasn't made its way to Xbox. Even if the game can come to Steam, there's no telling if it will.