You will not be able to play as Red XIII in Final Fantasy VII Remake.

Red XIII, the highly intelligent cat-dog from Final Fantasy VII, will not be a playable character in the upcoming Final Fantasy VII Remake. Despite being seen on the battlefield in a previous trailer, you won’t be able to directly control Red during combat… he’s apparently just a guest character who will help you during certain fights. We assume that he will get his chance to shine in future installments.

It’s a shame, given that Final Fantasy VII Remake, the first game, at least tries to flesh out Midgar’s story as much as possible. In the original release, Red XIII joins the party just as they’re about to escape the city, but it’s still a shame things haven’t been slightly tweaked to include a bit more.

“We feel like the time that Red XIII joins the party in the story is too late, so we thought if we’re going to have him as a full character and try to let the player enjoy his arc of development and growth as a character through that, is not really enough time to do it,” co-director Naoki Hamaguchi told VG247.

Hamaguchi continues, “We thought the best way to get him involved was as a guest character. Typically throughout the game, you’ll play as a party of three, but you’ll have him as a guest character who fights by your side during the latter part of the story. He’ll use all the old moves nostalgic for him, and you’ll see. We felt like it was the best way to show him as a character and who he is. So we felt it was the best way to include it.”

That means that Final Fantasy VII Remake will have a total of four characters that you can switch between: Cloud, Barrett, Tifa, and Aerith. And based on what we’ve seen of the title so far, each party member has a decent amount of depth to their fighting style, topped off with plenty of opportunity to customize their abilities through materia and skill trees.

Still, are you disappointed that Red XIII isn’t playable? Feel free to grumble in the comments section below.