Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade became available on Switch 2 and Xbox Series X|S in January.
Switch 2 owners noticed that the Final Fantasy VII remake is exclusively available in Game Key Card format, rather than on traditional cartridges. The new format, introduced with the Nintendo Switch 2, is a physical card that serves only as proof of ownership — the game data itself must be downloaded to the console's internal memory.
According to game director Naoki Hamaguchi, the decision was dictated purely by technical reasons. Loading data from the Switch 2's internal storage is approximately twice as fast as directly from the cartridge.
He noted that the game is not built on the principle of full pre-loading. Even during gameplay, data is constantly loaded and unloaded, so a slower read speed from the cartridge could lead to noticeable delays and discomfort for players.
An additional problem was the capacity of the media — the volume of available cartridges simply does not allow to accommodate the entire volume of project data. At the same time, the use of fast internal storage (SSD or UFS) allows to implement the intended game architecture without compromising the design.
