Final Fantasy 7 made a rather strong buzz for itself back in June with the Final Fantasy 7 25th Anniversary presentation. It was a livestream full of announcements for upcoming releases from the Crisis Core Reunion remaster later this year to Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth next year. While the discussion following the event has died down a bit for now, fans can still celebrate FF7 as August 11 marks Cloud Strife's birthday. However, not many gamers expected McDonald's to do the same.
When exactly Cloud, the protagonist of Final Fantasy 7, was born has been a debate for fans. In some versions of the manual that came with the original game, Cloud's birthday is listed as August 19. However, the FF7 Ultimania books that are advertised as complete encyclopedias for everything about the game and its Compilation of other titles say that Cloud was born on August 11. As of Final Fantasy 7 Remake, the series seems to be going with August 11 as the spiky-haired character's definite birthday.
As the official FF7 Twitter sought to celebrate Cloud's birthday with a cute image wishing the character well, an unexpected reply came from McDonald's, the famous fast food chain. The post features an image of a cake that reads "Happy Birthday, Cloud," and it isn't even a branded McDonald's cake, which makes the reply from the restaurant chain even more random.
Either despite how unprompted the Tweet was, or due to it, fans are loving the post for many different reasons. As some fans laugh at the fact that McDonald's is celebrating Cloud's birthday, others are talking about how the employee running the account has to be another Final Fantasy fan in order to pull such a thing off.
McDonald's itself is no stranger to video games. The company routinely works with Nintendo to promote releases such as the latest Pokemon or Mario titles with collaborative Happy Meal toys, but the company also uses a video game to train potential McDonald's employees that's been specifically made for that purpose.
However, due to how McDonald's aims to be a family friendly restaurant and has hardly worked with other titles that aren't rated E by the ESRB, it's very clear that Final Fantasy 7 is a title that's a bit out of the company's usual comfort zone. This only adds to the hilarity of the post, which makes it rather understandable as to why it's making fans laugh as they await more news regarding Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth's release next year.
Final Fantasy 7 Remake is available now on PC, PS4, and PS5.