The world of Final Fantasy VII is economically, militarily, and politically dominated by a powerful conglomerate called the Shin-Ra Electric Power Company, which profits from the use of machines known as "Mako Reactors." These reactors pump a special type of energy, named "Mako," out of the planet and convert it into electricity. One of the by-products of the extraction and refinement of Mako energy is materia, a strange substance with magical properties.

In actuality, Mako energy is drawn from the Lifestream, a flow of souls beneath the surface of the planet. All life originates from the Lifestream, and returns to it upon death. In short, the Lifestream is the sum of all the souls that have ever and will ever walk upon the planet. The process of extracting Mako energy literally drains the life of the planet in order to make electricity.

Shin-Ra's management is concerned with the limited repositories of Mako energy available for harvesting, and are fascinated with the idea of a "Promised Land"—a place where the land is incredibly fertile and where Mako flows abundantly. Only a race called the Cetra, or the Ancients, are, according to legend, able to find it. However, the Cetra have been driven to extinction, save for one child, Aeris Gainsborough, whom Shin-Ra has been trying to locate for years.

The city of Midgar, created and run entirely by Shin-Ra, and the location of their main headquarters, is home to a resistance group called AVALANCHE. The game opens as AVALANCHE hires an mercenary named Cloud Strife, a former member of Shin-Ra's elite special forces team, SOLDIER, to aid in the destruction of eight Mako reactors situated in a ring surrounding Midgar.

Cloud shows little interest in AVALANCHE's cause at first. By his own admission, he is interested only in the money. Eventually, however, Cloud discovers the connection between Shin-Ra's ecologically destructive actions and a shadowy figure from his own past, a man named Sephiroth, a legendary SOLDIER, whom Cloud had long believed dead. As Cloud is drawn deeper and deeper into the three-way conflict between Shin-Ra, AVALANCHE, and Sephiroth, Cloud's identity and his past come into question....

BARRET

TIFA

YUFFIE

VINCENT