With both Final Fantasy 7 Remake Part 2 and Final Fantasy 16 in development, it seems the next few years will be an interesting combination of brand new and old-made-new-again for Square Enix fans. Sadly, there's no telling when either game releases, as not much has been mentioned, really, about either except their existence.
Players do know that, based on its direction, Final Fantasy 7 Remake Part 2 will likely feature characters such as Vincent Valentine, Yuffie, and Cid Highwind. In the case of the former two, though, it's likely the game will take these once-optional characters and make them more important to the overarching narrative. This means small changes to the story, and for Cid Highwind, the game could very well change his character entirely (for the better).
Past FF7 Remake Changes
As these old but new characters join FF7 Remake, it's worth mentioning that they would not be the only characters to be changed. Story events aside, it's clear that several of the core characters, as well as a variety of side characters, were more fleshed out. Cloud, for example, maintains his distant soldier persona but doesn't seem as cold as he does in the original. Characters like Wedge, Biggs, and Jessie finally get their chance to shine, while at the same time, Tifa received a couple of changes to make her character model more in line with her fighting style. In other words, these changes have always improved the characters, and Cid Highwind will likely get the same treatment.
FF7 Remake: Reinventing Cid Highwind
In the original FF7, Cid is known for his foul mouth, can sometimes come off as uncaring, is constantly smoking, and more, but that's likely to be dialed back in the remake. A lot of Cid's dialogue is censored out to indicate his cursing in the first game, which isn't something a voice actor can do and audible censors for such a character would be one continuous noise. As with similar changes to FF7's Cloud, it's likely that Cid's more crude nature will be skin-deep, instead focusing on his genuinely kindhearted personality. And because of a huge cultural shift from the 1997 original to the 2020 remake, it's highly, highly unlikely that Cid will strike a cigarette at any point.
Notably, 2 years after the events of the main game, it's revealed that Cid has softened up, cussing much less and smoking less as well. As a result, it stands to reason that Final Fantasy 7 Remake Part 2's Cid is more closely related to this version of the character than the original, and in the long run, that's probably for the best.
Final Fantasy 7 Remake Part 2 is in development.