It's been confirmed that Cloud Strife from Final Fantasy 7 will appear in Chocobo GP as a racer, but he can only be acquired as part of the Season Pass DLC. Chocobo GP is an upcoming kart racer for Nintendo Switch, which features characters and stages from the Final Fantasy series.
The chocobos are some of the most iconic creatures in the Final Fantasy franchise, which is why they have starred in their own spin-off titles. One of these was Chocobo Racing for the original PlayStation, which featured a number of different monsters and character archetypes from the Final Fantasy series as racers. Cloud from FF7 appeared as a racer in Chocobo Racing, atop his trusty Hardy-Daytona bike from FF7. This wasn't Cloud's only crossover appearance on the PlayStation, has also appeared as a fighter in Ehrgeiz and a playable character in Final Fantasy Tactics.
Cloud's popularity meant that he was always a front-runner for a slot as a Final Fantasy character in Chocobo GP. It has been confirmed in a post on the official Final Fantasy Twitter page that Cloud will be part of the game, but he will be locked behind its Season Pass DLC. It seems that Chocobo GP is going the Battle Pass route, which will have seasons with exclusive characters. The players who log in during the first season will receive 800 Mythril, which can be used to buy Cloud outright.
The same Twitter thread has confirmed that Squall Leonhart from FF8 can be unlocked by spending Gil. Square Enix has also released new screenshots of each of the characters using their special abilities, with Cloud performing his spin attack from the motorcycle sections of FF7 Remake, Shiva using Diamond Dust to deal ice damage to enemy racers, and Squall performing one of his Limit Break attacks from FF8.
As well as the full game, Chocobo GP has a free-to-play version, called Chocobo GP Lite, which restricts the number of modes available to the player. It's unclear how this live service system will work with the free-to-play version in the future. Chocobo GP isn't even going to be the only kart racer on the Switch using this model, as the newly-announced Disney Speedstorm will be doing the same thing when it releases. It was smart of Square Enix to bring out the big guns early and use Cloud as an incentive for people to check out Chocobo GP and it will be interesting to see what other Final Fantasy characters make the cut in the future, or if Square Enix will consider going beyond the series and turn Chocobo GP into a crossover game.
Chocobo GP will be released for Nintendo Switch on March 10, 2022.
Source: Final Fantasy/Twitter