Nearly every Final Fantasy game after Final Fantasy 6 contains an odd Star Wars reference, including Final Fantasy 7 Remake. A “Skywalker” here or a “Leia” there wouldn’t be too surprising as little nods from localization teams, but Final Fantasy’s Star Wars references are far more niche, and they have occasionally been important to the games’ plots – especially in Final Fantasy 7 and 8.

Rather than referencing a main character, location, or item from Star Wars that most casual fans would recognize, the Final Fantasy games contain references to two characters barely seen in the films: X-Wing pilots Biggs Darklighter and Wedge Antilles. Biggs was introduced in Star Wars: Episode 4 A New Hope as a childhood friend of Luke Skywalker’s, who was later killed by Darth Vader while attempting to destroy the Death Star. Wedge survived the first Death Star and the second, living long enough to make a cameo in the sequel trilogy’s The Rise of Skywalker.

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Beginning in Final Fantasy 6, most mainline Final Fantasy games have included two characters named Biggs and Wedge (or references to them). Final Fantasy 6′s reference is harder to catch, since Biggs’ Japanese name was mistakenly translated – much like Aerith’s name in Final Fantasy 7 – as “Vicks” instead of Biggs, but it nonetheless began the tradition. While most games after Final Fantasy 6 relegated Biggs and Wedge to minor roles (as recruitable blitzball players in Final Fantasy 10, for instance), Final Fantasy 8 cast them as goofy enemy goons encountered throughout the game, and Final Fantasy 7 made Biggs and Wedge allies to sympathize with.

In Final Fantasy 7 and its remake, Biggs and Wedge are part of the eco-terrorist AVALANCHE organization Cloud Strife assists at the game’s beginning. Along with their companion Jessie, they serve to help Cloud connect to AVALANCHE’s cause. They’re some of the first people the player meets, and they provide added levity to the early game, [spoilers ahead] which gives their deaths at the destruction of Sector 7 more weight. In this way, they come closer than other Final Fantasy Biggs and Wedge cameos to fulfilling Biggs’ role in Star Wars: Just as he provided a small but still emotionally poignant death for Luke to deal with, they do the same for Cloud and the player [end of spoilers].

In interviews with publications such as GamesRadar, original Final Fantasy 6, 7, and 8 Director Yoshinori Kitase has mentioned the first Star Wars film as part of what got him interested in movies and, later, video games. Perhaps this love for Star Wars motivated the inclusion of Biggs and Wedge in these early Final Fantasy games, and that tradition has stuck around since. According to Famitsu (via TechnoBuffalo), Kitase, along with Final Fantasy 7 Remake Director Tetsuya Nomura and Scenario Writer Kazushige Nojima, said the team wants to explore Biggs’, Wedge’s, and Jessie’s origins in Remake. Square Enix has already confirmed there will be Final Fantasy 7 Remake story changes to flesh-out the original Midgar section into a full-length game, so fans will likely be seeing more of Final Fantasy’s Star Wars-inspired duo.

Final Fantasy 7 Remakereleases for PlayStation 4 on April 10, 2020.

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Camden Jones
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Camden Jones is one of Screen Rant’s gaming features editors. He loves video games, but he’s even more interested in the people who make and play them.

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