Crisis Core FFVII Reunion Buster Sword Christmas Tree Created

As part of a Crisis Core FFVII Reunion promotion, Square Enix tapped artist Simon O’Rourke to create a Christmas tree sculpture involving it. The project involved a Blue Atlantic Cedar dying due to dieback and a chainsaw for the carving process. It was created over a four day period.

Here’s the official video showing the creation of the Crisis Core FFVII Reunion Buster Sword Christmas tree. An ebony wood stain was used on the “sword” itself, to help it stand out from the tree and recreate the look of the metal weapon. Steel rivets were also inserted in the hilt.

With the “tree,” branches were carved separately. O’Rourke noted the idea was to make them look like both circuitry and the lines of sword. He also noted the difficulty of the art project. In the Square Enix official interview, he noted, “That’s because mechanical – or in this case ‘engineered’ – subjects need to have perfectly straight lines. For this one, I used a laser level to make sure everything was absolutely perfectly aligned, but it’s actually much of a challenge to get these right compared to, say, an animal.”

Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion is now available for the Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and PC.