Warning: The following contains SPOILERS for Final Fantasy 7.
Final Fantasy 7 Remake is making a generous amount of changes to the original story and world, while still maintaining the same overall narrative. Final Fantasy 7 is well known for having a complex story filled with lore and different narrative threads. This only became even more complicated with the Compilation of Final Fantasy 7.
One of the more interesting minor characters is Zack Fair, a former SOLDIER friend of Clouds. Despite only having a few minutes of screentime in the original game, Zack is surprisingly important to the overall story.
The launch trailer for the Final Fantasy 7 Remake hints that Zack might have a bigger part in the Remake than before, so it's worth knowing the history of the character and how the compilation fleshed him out.
Zack Fair's History and Origins
Zack Fair was born in a small village called Gongaga in the year 1984, in Final Fantasy 7's timeline. Like many young people in the game's world, Zack's childhood dream was to join SOLDIER, the elite fighting force of Shinra. At the age of thirteen, Zack ran away from his hometown and joined SOLDIER, working his way up the ranks to become Second Class. This is when Zack is mentored by Angeal, one of the most powerful members of SOLDIER and one of the closest friends of Genesis and Sephiroth. Zack participates in the Wutai War, and by recommendation of Angeal becomes a SOLDIER First Class.
At this point Genesis defects and takes a large portion of SOLDIER's force with him. Genesis declares war on Shinra, and Zack is one of the key figures in fighting him. During this time Zack meets and befriends a Cloud, who's a foot soldier in the Shinra military.
Zack Fair's Role in Final Fantasy 7's Story
Zack has a direct connection to many of the main characters of Final Fantasy 7, and many of the major plot points. During the war with Genesis, he also becomes friends with Sephiroth and learns about the truth behind the Jenova project. In actuality Cloud never joined SOLDIER, and he was only a foot soldier the whole time. Five years before the start of Final Fantasy 7 Zack and Sephiroth are sent to investigate the Mako Reactor at Nibelheim, due to a large number of monsters suddenly appearing. Cloud and another soldier accompany them as part of the investigation team. This is when the Nibelheim incident occurs and Sephiroth, now driven insane by the truth of his origins, burns the town to the ground. Sephiroth is presumed dead after Cloud throws him down the Mako Reactor, and Zack and Cloud are capture by Shinra and experimented on by Hojo.
Months before the start of the original game Zack wakes up and escapes Shinra's facility with a comatose Cloud, hit with Mako sickness from the experiments. The pair are tracked down by Shinra and Zack sacrifices himself to save Cloud. From here Cloud's memory is wiped because of the experiments and trauma, and he assumes Zack's persona as his own. Now Cloud puts himself into all of the feats and memories of Zack and develops his own cocky personality to match his best friends. Apart from all of this, Zack also meets Aerith in Midgar and falls in love with her, and he also befriends Tseng, the leader of the Turks.
The latest trailer for the Final Fantasy 7 Remake ends with a quick stinger that suggests Zack Fair might be making an appearance much earlier than in the original. Square Enix has also confirmed parts of the Compilation will still be canon, like how there's a Banora White (from Crisis Core) poster in the demo. Zack is a vital piece to the overall story, and he's only become more and more popular with fans over the years.