How to Unlock Chocobos in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth

Everybody loves Chocobos, and I struggle to find a time when they’ve been more adorable than in Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth. Unlocking Chocobos is also blessedly simple, if occasionally a bit frustrating, but once you have the big, dopey birds on your side, there’s nowhere you can’t go.

How to Ride Chocobos in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth

FF7 Rebirth is made up of large, open regions, and each has its own type of Chocobo. Unlocking the ability to ride each region’s native bird usually involves a few steps. For the first two regions, the process is fairly simple. Find a Chocobo ranch and help the ranch owner. Others take a bit more doing.

A few of the regions have areas marked by Chocobo tracks on the map and on the ground. You’ll first see these in the opening Grasslands region. They appear at least once more during the story. Chocobo track marks designate where you need to go to retrieve a Chocobo that’s gone astray, or otherwise bring it back to its ranch.

Note: Potential spoilers for the Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth story follow. Read on at your own risk.

Unlocking Chocobos in Rebirth is also almost always keyed to a minigame of some sort, and almost all are connected to the first available quest in a region. The only exception comes in chapter 9, where you gain access to a Chocobo as part of the main story campaign. Below, I’ve listed all the regions by a numeral, but go into more detail about what Chocobos you’ll find there and what you need to do to unlock them.

How to Unlock Region 1 Chocobos

The Chocobo you unlock in the first region (the Grasslands) isn’t actually the easiest, as there’s a small minigame to complete to actually capture the thing, but the quest you complete is required to progress the story. If you’re familiar with the original 1997 game, you’ll know why. It involves water and a snake. The first region Chocobo has no special abilities, but is cute as a button.

How to Unlock Region 2 Chocobos

When you reach the second region of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, one of the first places you see is a failing Chocobo farm. To earn the right to ride Chocobos wherever you want in Region Two, you need to not only catch them but also do a short and simple fetch quest with a map with some X’s on it. Once the quest is complete, you can call your Chocobo wherever you please.

How to Unlock Region 3 Chocobos

In Region Three, one of the simplest Chocobo regions, you visit a stall, pay a fee, and are off to the races. You don’t actually ride the Chocobo throughout the entire region, trading it instead for something a little more mechanical. As before, veterans of the 1997 original should have some idea of where I’m talking about.

How to Unlock Region 4 Chocobos

Region Four’s Chocobos have no associated side quest, track marks, or other side quest requirements. Instead, after you pass a certain point in the story campaign, the game just gives you the Chocobo in question. No muss, no fuss.

How to Unlock Region 5 Chocobos

Region Five Chocobos are probably the hardest lot to add to your flock, as the minigame to do so is particularly annoying. The side quest that provides the Chocobo then continues and is one of the more technically difficult to that point in the game, even following some more precise aim challenges from earlier in a playthrough. The rewards are worth it if you’re good at controlling floaty birds.

How to Unlock Region 6 Chocobos

The Chocobos in Region Six are probably my least favorite to unlock because the minigame you complete to do so is incredibly finicky. Worse, if you mess up, you’re not only punished with progress loss, but you also need to wait almost a full minute if you miss a checkpoint before trying again. Completing the associated side quest is also a horrid collect-a-thon. The story of the quest is nice, but the gameplay is actually just bad.

Once you’ve unlocked each region’s Chocobo, you can return there and use them with a simple press of R1. Fast traveling within a region also usually allows you to choose whether you want to walk or ride when you arrive at the travel point, letting you get off on the right talon, as it were.

That covers how to get Chocobos in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. We’ve got plenty more FF7 Rebirth content on the way, so stay tuned to our guides hub for more.