Rebirth lays the groundwork for Shinra starting a world war to generate more lifestream material (anguish of war victims) and “replenish the planet” so that they can pump out more Mako, it seems to be going pretty hardcore about Shinra being pure casual evil ultra imperialist capitalist, with the side of growing religious takeover with who believes or not in the Promised Land (and I forget what they call the huge materia in Rebirth - magister? Magnus?) as a land of infinite resource to sell as electricity. Scarlet salivating at the Weapons, literal harbingers of the end of the world, for the giant materia they’re made of is pretty on point.

Also they made massive efforts on the worldbuilding with all regions each having their History dominated by their local war with Shinra. I’m eager to get Wutai and the revamp from the war in Crisis Core, and possible new mentions of the new Ever Crisis stuff like Rhadore and that recent pre-Wutai place. Shinra has been going from cartoon villains in the OG to openly pure evil of mankind.