Today’s a big day for those looking forward to the upcoming Final Fantasy VII Remake, as the demo is finally out and a ton of fresh footage has hit the web. That said, it’s not entirely good news, as Square Enix has revealed the new FF7 has an odd restriction – you can’t actually play as Red XIII.

　　The Final Fantasy VII Remake covers roughly the first third of the original game that takes place in Midgar, and Red XIII joins your team near the end of that first act, so Square Enix decided it would be best if the big beastie was just a guest character. Traditionally in Final Fantasy, guest characters can join and help your team, but you don’t have direct control over them. Here’s what FF7 Remake co-director Naoki Hamaguchi had to say about the decision to demote Red XIII to guest character…

　　We felt the point at which Red XIII joins the party in the story is very late [in the first act] so we thought okay, if we’re gonna have him as a full character and try and get the player to enjoy his character development arc and growth as a character through that, it’s not really enough time to do that. We thought that the best way to have him involved was as a guest character. Normally throughout the game you’ll be playing as a three-man party, but you will have him as a guest character that fights alongside you during the last part of the story. He’ll be using all of his old really nostalgic moves, and you’ll see that. We felt that was the best way of showing him off as a character and who he is.

　　Here’s hoping Red XIII gets to graduate to full party member in future chapters of the Final Fantasy VIII Remake. Despite only representing a portion of the content from the original FF7, Square Enix is once again promising the game will be a satisfying experience in it’s own right.

　　The top priority of deciding what content to go in was that this had to be a complete standalone game, a real satisfying gaming experience. After you’ve completed the game, you have to think that yeah, this was a brilliant game in its own right.

　　We’ll see how brilliant players think Final Fantasy VII Remake is when it hits PS4 on April 10.