FF7 Rebirth: How to skip the Chapter 1 Nibelheim flashback
Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth starts off with a playable flashback to the Nibelheim incident, a terrible incident that saw a small village decimated by Sephiroth’s wrath. It’s a pivotal part of Final Fantasy 7’s story, and it becomes very relevant later in the game, so it’s an important moment to play through — and quite fun to boot.
It’s also the main playable section of the Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth demo, which has been available to players for a couple of weeks now. The flashback is identical in both the demo and the final game, but thankfully if you’ve completed the demo, you will get the option to skip the flashback so you don’t have to play it twice.
It’s not immediately clear how or when to skip the section, though, so this guide will walk you through how to skip Nibelheim in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth.
How to skip Chapter 1, Nibelheim – FF7 Rebirth
Before starting a new game in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, you’ll want to claim your save data bonuses from the main menu. As a reminder, you need to have finished the Nibelheim part of the demo if you want to skip it in the main game, even though you’ll get other rewards from the demo even if you don’t finish it.
FF7 Rebirth starts with an opening prologue that is quite unique, but shortly after that, you’ll hit the point in the story where Cloud starts retelling the story of the Nibelheim incident. If you’ve played the demo, you might be starting to get a little bit of deja vu, but don’t worry — if there’s anything you’ve seen already, you can skip the cutscenes by holding down the triangle button or pressing the menu button and selecting skip.
You won’t be able to skip the whole flashback, and you might think that the save data bonus hasn't been activated, but give it a bit of time. In order to skip the Nibelheim flashback, you’ll need to progress very slightly through the story once you get into Nibelheim. This includes climbing the water tower to reminisce, checking out Tifa’s house, checking in with your mom, and heading to the hotel to rest. After meeting with Tifa in the past, a prompt will come up asking if you want to skip forward to the village.
You'll be able to skip most of the Nibelheim flashback by selecting yes.
Square Enix
You’ll still have to do the slow crawl through the fire at the end of the scene if you choose to skip it, but you’ll skip the entire mako reactor investigation, which shaves over an hour off your playtime. This won’t affect the gameplay or story at all, as you don’t keep items obtained in the flashback, so if you’ve already played it, there’s no point in playing it again.
