Final Fantasy 7 (VII) Rebirth How to Unlock Hard Difficulty & Chapter Select

In Final Fantasy 7 (VII) Rebirth you unlock Hard Difficulty and Chapter Select upon beating the story for the first time, after finishing all 14 Chapters. It doesn’t matter on what difficulty you finish the story.

You do not need to beat it on Normal. Beating the story on Easy also unlocks the Hard Difficulty. After the story you also unlock the “Play Log” which is a 100% Checklist that shows what you have remaining.

Once you’ve finished the story, load a completed story save game (it will say “Chapter Selection” on the save). Press Options-Button > System > Chapter Selection. Then you can choose Hard Difficulty.

If you go to the Title Screen and pick “New Game” it will NOT let you pick hard difficulty. You can only select hard mode via chapter select on a completed save game.

Chapter Select Explained:

• All equipment, XP, levels, quest progress, minigame highscores, Materia AP etc. carry over between chapter select. Your overall progress is saved to your profile.
• Example: if you jump to Chapter 2 after the story, you keep all your gear, level, quest progress you had at the end of Chapter 14. After you finish what you want in Chapter 2 you can jump back to Chapter 13 and it keeps any progress you had made in the meantime. It doesn’t reset your progress to what you had at the start of Chapter 13, instead it carries over all progress made via Chapter Select since then. Quest progress also carries over between chapters, so if you do a quest in Chapter 2 and then load Chapter 13 it will still count as completed.
• Through Chapter Select you can also reset Side Quest progress or choose to carry it over. This can be done individually on each Chapter. It allows you to replay Side Quests to get their “Perfect” result for 100% completion.
• You can jump in and out of Chapters at any time. For example, if you are halfway through Chapter 12 to finish up a trophy, you can then immediately use Chapter Select from the System Menu to jump to Chapter 13 and it will save all progress game-wide.
• Everything is replayable via Chapter Select EXCEPT Gilgamesh (Superboss). He can’t be replayed so it’s good to keep a Manual Save before him if you want to practice him for the Brutal/Legendary VR Missions.

Hard Difficulty Explained:

• Items cannot be used (no items of any kind, including healing items).
• HP is only restored at Rest Spots (however, you can still use Spells and Abilities such as “Prayer” and “Chakra” to regenerate health during combat).
• Certain Manuscript Collectibles are only available on Hard.
• Certain Combat Simulator Missions are only available on Hard Difficulty. This means you cannot 100% complete or platinum the game without finishing hard difficulty.
• Enemies become even stronger.
• You get to keep all of your equipment (it’s basically New Game Plus). All your Items, Materia, Character Level etc. carry over into Hard Difficulty.
• For Tips see Hard Difficulty Guide & Boss Guide (Hard Strategies)

For more FF VII Rebirth info, check out our full Final Fantasy VII Rebirth Wiki & Strategy Guide.