VII:

It's actually Sephiroth's hatred of Cloud that allows him to resist the pull of the Lifestream, though after the Nibelheim incident he needs vessels to act through since he technically died then and there.

I can't see them killing Cloud given he's the main protagonist. While there are already deviations from the original story they did say it's going to "closely" follow the original, so I don't see such a drastic divergence happening... there are differences, but this is still VII.

... and maybe it's a red herring, but the preview for Rebirth does lean somewhat into the idea (Sephiroth claiming Tifa is a Jenova construct and the real one died at Nibelheim; veracity yet to be determined).


As for XVI itself? Ehh, lacking interest I spoiled the whole story for myself and it's about what I expected. Maybe I've seen too many movies, maybe they wore their inspirations too much on their sleeves...