Final Fantasy VII The First Soldier approaches its fourth season on September 1. Before the fourth season begins, the game has added a completely new variant mode. In the mode, players can play as famous enemies from the Final Fantasy franchise such as Cactuar, Bomb, Slug-Ray, Bahamut, and Cloud’s nemesis Sephiroth, the esteemed soldier first class with his iconic Masamune in hand.
Variant mode is only available until August 31st, but in the meantime, you can dive into fighting these enemies as your custom soldier character or control versions of these prolific enemies that play similar to their aesthetics and mechanics in the games. final fantasy games .
This guide will show you the different options to try to play as Sephiroth, Bahamut, and more for Final Fantasy VII’s first soldier variant mode.

What is variant mode?
The variant mode is a 9v3 mode. It allows nine players to use their custom soldier that they have been playing in ranked or standard matches to take on three players with the ability to transform into variants.
These variants are:
- Bomb
- lightning-slug
- cactuar
- Bahamut
- sefirot
Each of these variants play mechanically like the enemies you’ve fought in other Final Fantasy games. The bomb can unleash fireballs and explode on death to decimate the area. Slug-Ray can fly by firing his artillery. Cactuar can dash around the area, is hard to damage due to its small frame, and can emit needles at enemies. Bahamut can fly around the map, bombard and create prominent destructive flares to engulf the opposing team. Sephiroth can swipe across the map, slice through enemies effortlessly, summon kites from the sky, and even teleport onto an enemy player before slashing to execute them.

How to play as Sephiroth
From the main menu, you will need to tap on Game Mode in the box on the right side.

Then choose the Current Event, which is the Variant Mode. It’s the one with Sephiroth looking directly at you the same way he usually looks at Cloud.

Then you are ready to go and you can start looking for a match with this mode.
If all 12 players do not join the match, it will be necessary to search for the match again.
To ensure you play as the Variant Team, you will need to earn Variant Team Tickets. The different ways to earn these Variant Team Tickets are:
- Play matches as the candidate team, allowing you to control your custom soldier to fight variants.
- Deal 100 or more damage in a match
- Play matches to the end without leaving the game
- Play matches without placing a check mark on the mode selection screen
You can only earn variant team tickets from variant mode. You cannot earn Variant Team Tickets by playing other game modes.
You can only have 10 Variant Team Tickets, and if you are meeting with friends or in a group, everyone must have five Variant Team Tickets available to guarantee priority to be placed as a Variant Team.
It’s important to note that you can sometimes end up in the Variant Team without the use of tickets. As long as you start matching in variant mode, even if you don’t have enough tickets, you can still play as Sephiroth.

If all 12 players don’t join before a match begins and you pick Sephiroth, you’ll have to start the matchmaking over. This will make you lose the chance to play as Sephiroth for that match.
Tickets will not be consumed if you do not join the Variant Team.
If you die as any of the Variants, as long as another team member hasn’t taken the one you’d like, then you can respawn as the Variant of your choice. Only one of each variant type can be on the map, so there can’t be three Sephiroths running at the same time. Sephiroth, like the other variants, has an HP recovery passive that restores 5% HP upon defeating a candidate. Try to continually kill the Candidate Team while taking minimal damage, so you can play as Sephiroth longer before switching out.
Best of luck joining the Variant Team and playing as Sephiroth for the next few days!
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