Key Takeaways
- Square Enix has officially announced Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth: Dear Destiny, an official novel releasing in English on March 16, 2027.
- The book is written by Kazushige Nojima — the veteran FF7 writer who has worked on the series since 1994.
- It’s a direct sequel to Traces of Two Pasts, focusing on the backstories of Aerith Gainsborough and Tifa Lockhart before the main FF7 narrative.
- A bonus short story covering Cloud’s time as a Shinra trooper is also included.
- Pre-orders are now live at $26.99 for a hardcover copy via the Square Enix store.
- The novel was delayed from its original January 28 release date.
- It lands just weeks before the trilogy concludes with Final Fantasy 7 Revelation on April 8, 2027.
2027 is shaping up to be absolutely massive for Final Fantasy 7 fans, and Square Enix is making sure you’re fully prepped before the curtain comes down on the remake trilogy. The studio has officially announced the English release of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth: Dear Destiny, a new novel hitting shelves on March 16, 2027 — just a few weeks before Final Fantasy 7 Revelation closes out the trilogy on April 8.
Pre-orders are live now via the Square Enix store, with a hardcover copy priced at $26.99. If you’ve been keeping up with the supplementary material that Square Enix has been building around the remake series, this one is going to feel essential.
What Is Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth: Dear Destiny?
Dear Destiny is the direct sequel to Final Fantasy 7 Remake: Traces of Two Pasts, the novel that explored the separate backstories of Aerith Gainsborough and Tifa Lockhart in the lead-up to the events of the remake. That book first released in Japanese in July 2021 and didn’t get an English localization until March 2023 — so fans who went through that wait will be relieved to know the sequel is being brought west much more quickly this time around.
Dear Destiny picks up where Traces of Two Pasts left off, continuing the life stories of Aerith and Tifa in the period immediately before the main narrative of Final Fantasy 7 begins. Tifa’s chapters are expected to follow her as she manages Seventh Heaven, deals with her complicated memories of Nibelheim, and navigates the Turks. Aerith’s story follows her adapting to life as a flower seller in the slums of Midgar — both threads converging toward the moment the two characters’ stories intersect with Cloud and the rest of AVALANCHE.
On top of the dual Aerith and Tifa storylines, the book also includes a bonus short story set during Cloud Strife’s time as a Shinra trooper — a tantalizing look at a period in Cloud’s past that the games have only touched on obliquely. For fans who’ve been piecing together Cloud’s fractured memories across both Remake and Rebirth, this has the potential to fill in some genuinely significant gaps.
Who Wrote It?
The author is Kazushige Nojima, and that name alone should be enough to sell this to any serious FF7 fan. Nojima has been embedded in the Final Fantasy series since 1994 and is one of the primary architects of the FF7 universe — he wrote the original 1997 game’s scenario, co-wrote Advent Children, and has been deeply involved in the remake trilogy. He also wrote Traces of Two Pasts, so Dear Destiny is in exactly the right hands. This isn’t supplementary material handed to a tie-in writer — it’s the people who actually built this world continuing to expand it.
The English voices of Aerith and Tifa — Briana White and Britt Baron — were actually involved in the announcement at Anime Expo 2026, where they debuted the release date in a special video message. That kind of involvement from the voice cast suggests Square Enix is treating this as a genuine piece of the canon rather than a side project.
Why Is This Releasing in March 2027?
The timing is very deliberate. Dear Destiny was originally scheduled to release on January 28, 2027, but was recently delayed to March 16 — still landing just weeks before Final Fantasy 7 Revelation on April 8. Square Enix is clearly positioning the novel as a bridge between Rebirth and the trilogy’s conclusion, giving fans material to digest that deepens their connection to Aerith and Tifa ahead of what will almost certainly be an emotionally demanding final chapter.
Anyone who has played both Remake and Rebirth knows that Aerith’s story in particular carries enormous weight heading into Revelation. Having a novel that digs into who she was before any of this started — in the months before Cloud walked into her life — is going to make that finale hit even harder for readers who pick it up.
What Is Final Fantasy 7 Revelation?
For anyone who needs a quick refresher: Final Fantasy 7 Revelation is the third and final game in Square Enix’s FF7 remake trilogy. It was confirmed at September’s PlayStation State of Play alongside over ten minutes of gameplay, with a release date locked in for April 8, 2027. It will launch simultaneously on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC — making it the first entry in the trilogy to arrive on Nintendo hardware on launch day.
The trilogy has been remarkable — both Remake and Rebirth landed as critically acclaimed as the 1997 original, which is genuinely difficult to pull off for a project of this ambition. Revelation is expected to conclude what has become one of the most impressive expanded universe projects in gaming history, with the novels, the games, and the broader media around them forming a genuinely coherent and rich world.
For those wondering what comes after Revelation: Square Enix hasn’t made any official announcements, but the question of what the studio does next is already dominating fan discussion. A Final Fantasy 9 remake is among the most frequently mentioned next steps, given FF9’s reputation as one of the most beloved entries in the series.
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