Gamers are using the Final Fantasy VII Rebirth demo to cover My Chemical Romance’s Welcome To The Black Parade

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A piano minigame in the new Final Fantasy teaser is letting players relive the emo glory days

A photo of Gerard Way onstage with My Chemical Romance in 2006, next to the cover of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth
(Image credit: Michael Loccisano/FilmMagic | Square Enix)

A demo of upcoming video game Final Fantasy VII Rebirth was released this week, and players are using it to perform covers of My Chemical Romance megahit Welcome To The Black Parade.

The preview of the much-hyped Final Fantasy entry, which will come out in full on February 29, features a minigame where protagonist Cloud Strife plays the piano. So, naturally, it didn’t take devout MCR fans long to try and perform the instantly recognisable Welcome To The Black Parade part.

Some successful attempts are now being shared on social media.

X (formerly Twitter) user Egaz__ posted footage of their performance on February 7. Along with the video (embedded below), they shared, “WHEN I WAS, A YOUNG BOY, MY FATHER, TOOK ME INTO THE CITY”, referencing Welcome To The Black Parade’s first verse.

User Reaper_guitar also uploaded footage of their performance yesterday (February 8).

They wrote: “I finally get around to starting the FF7 Rebirth demo and what’s the first thing I do? Find the piano and spend 5-10 minutes figuring out how to play the piano part from Welcome To The Black Parade by MCR 😅”

This is far from the first time gamers have got musical in big-name titles. 2020’s The Last Of Us Part II featured a minigame where protagonist Ellie plays an acoustic guitar, and footage was posted shortly after release showing users performing the introductions to Metallica songs One and Nothing Else Matters.

MCR released Welcome To The Black Parade as a single on September 12, 2006: a month before the release of their third album, The Black Parade. The song topped the UK singles chart, as well as the US Billboard Alternative Airplay chart.

Welcome To The Black Parade is currently MCR’s second-most popular song on Spotify, boasting 724,000,000 streams. Only Teenagers, also from The Black Parade, outranks it, with 869,000,000 streams.

Matt Mills
Matt Mills
Contributing Editor, Metal Hammer

Louder’s resident Gojira obsessive was still at uni when he joined the team in 2017. Since then, Matt’s become a regular in Prog and Metal Hammer, at his happiest when interviewing the most forward-thinking artists heavy music can muster. He’s got bylines in The Guardian, The Telegraph, NME, Guitar and many others, too. When he’s not writing, you’ll probably find him skydiving, scuba diving or coasteering.