Square Enix has announced that the Final Fantasy VII Remake prequel novel, Traces of Two Pasts, will be receiving an official English translation, coming in November 2022. Final Fantasy 7 Remake: Traces of Two Pasts is a story starring Aerith and Tifa as they talk about their life before the events of the game.

FF7‘s Traces of Two Pasts was originally released in Japan in 2021. The book is penned by Kazushige Nojima, who was the scenario writer for FF7, FF7 Remake, FF7: The First Soldier, and the upcoming FF7: Ever Crisis. Nojima was also the author of the original FF7 novels: On the Way to a Smile and The Kids are Alright: A Turks Side Story. The content from these novels is actually important to the series as a whole, and is considered canon to the games. A scene involving Vincent and Red XIII in On the Way to a Smile explains the ending of the original game, and FF7 Remake referenced The Kids are Alright, as Kyrie and Leslie from the novel had prominent roles in the game.

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There are unofficial translations of FF7‘s Traces of Two Pasts available online, but fans will soon be able to read an official version of the novel. Square Enix has revealed that the English version of Traces of Two Pasts will be released on November 8, 2022. There will also be English language versions of Final Fantasy VII: Material Ultimania Plus, which features a lot of extra lore and behind-the-scenes notes about the development of the game.

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Traces of Two Pasts details the life of Aerith and Tifa before the events of FF7 Remake, including new pieces of background information about both characters. The framing device of the book is also interesting, as it confirms some of the events that will happen in the upcoming sequel to FF7 Remake. Traces of Two Pasts confirms that FF7 Remake will include the boat ride from the original game, where the party goes undercover as Shinra soldiers and infiltrate a ship so that they can sail to Costa Del Sol in safety. The ending of FF7 Remake allowed the characters to break free from the confines of the original story and go in a brand new direction, but it seems that they will still make some of the same choices that they did in FF7.

The timeline of FF7 Remake is slowly being filled out, as FF7: The First Soldier shows the formation of the SOLDIER unit, the INTERmission DLC shows what Yuffie was up to during the events of the original game, and the upcoming Ever Crisis will give Before Crisis its first English translation. Traces of Two Pasts will help fill out even more holes in the timeline, as it can show Tifa’s escape from Nibelheim and Aerith’s attempts to evade the Shinra Corporation.

Final Fantasy VII Remake: Traces of Two Pasts will be released on November 8, 2022.

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Scott Baird
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Scott has been writing for Screen Rant since 2016 and regularly contributes to The Gamer. He has previously written articles and video scripts for websites like Cracked, Dorkly, Topless Robot, and TopTenz.
A graduate of Edge Hill University in the UK, Scott started out as a film student before moving into journalism. It turned out that wasting a childhood playing video games, reading comic books, and watching movies could be used for finding employment, regardless of what any career advisor might tell you. Scott specializes in gaming and has loved the medium since the early ‘90s when his first console was a ZX Spectrum that used to take 40 minutes to load a game from a tape cassette player to a black and white TV set. Scott now writes game reviews for Screen Rant and The Gamer, as well as news reports, opinion pieces, and game guides. He can be contacted on LinkedIn.

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