Cloud Strife (Japanese: クラウド・ストライフ, Hepburn: Kuraudo Sutoraifu) is a character and the protagonist of the 1997 role-playing video game Final Fantasy VII by Square (now Square Enix). He is also the protagonist of its remakes Final Fantasy VII Remake (2020) and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth (2024), as well as its animated film sequel Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children (2005), with appearances in several other installments in the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII and the wider Final Fantasy series. He has also appeared in other media, including the Kingdom Hearts series by Square Enix and The Walt Disney Company and the Super Smash Bros. series by Nintendo.

Throughout Final Fantasy VII and its compilation that expands its universe, Cloud Strife is portrayed as a revolutionary working for the eco-terrorist group AVALANCHE in their efforts against the Shinra Electric Power Company, a mega corporation who plans to drain the world of its lifestream. Cloud experiences internal struggles in confronting his own traumatic past, including his history with former colleague Sephiroth.

Cloud was designed by Tetsuya Nomura, a character artist for the Final Fantasy series, whose role expanded to include supervision over Cloud's personality. Yoshinori Kitase, director of VII, and Kazushige Nojima, an events planner, developed the story and wanted to create a mysterious character who acted atypically for a hero. Nomura redesigned Cloud for Advent Children, giving him a more realistic appearance, along with new weaponry and a new outfit. For Remake, the team aimed to adapt his classic design for a more realistic art style.

Cloud has garnered generally positive reception from critics and is considered to be one of the most iconic video game protagonists. He has also been cited favorably as an example of complex character writing in video games, as one of video gaming's first unreliable narrators, and for the game's depiction of his mental disorder. Additionally, he is seen as a messiah figure in both the game and film for opposing Sephiroth's schemes with support from his allies.

In contrast to Final Fantasy VI, which featured multiple "main characters", Square's staff decided in the beginning of Final Fantasy VII's development that the game would follow a single identifiable protagonist. In Hironobu Sakaguchi's first plot treatment, a prototype for Cloud's character belonged to an organization attempting to destroy New York City's "Mako Reactors". Kitase and Nomura discussed that Cloud would be the lead of three protagonists, but Nomura did not receive character profiles or a completed scenario in advance. Left to imagine the stories behind the characters he designed, Nomura shared these details in discussions with staff or in separately penned notes. Frustrated by the continued popularity of Final Fantasy IV's characters despite the release of two sequels, Nomura made it his goal to create a memorable cast. The contrast between Cloud, a "young, passionate boy", and Sephiroth, a "more mature and cool" individual, struck Amano as "intriguing", though not unusual as a pairing. When designing Cloud and Sephiroth, Nomura imagined a rivalry mirroring that of Miyamoto Musashi and Sasaki Kojirō, with Cloud and Sephiroth representing Musashi and Kojirō, respectively.

Kitase and Nojima developed Cloud's backstory and his relationship to Sephiroth. While drafting the game's scenario, Nojima saw a standing animation created by event planner Motomu Toriyama that depicted "Cloud showing off". The animation impressed Nojima and inspired the idea that Cloud had developed a false persona. This later led Nojima to create Zack Fair, a SOLDIER whom Cloud aspired to be like, to expand on the mystery of Cloud's past. Nojima left the unfolding of events regarding Cloud's identity unwritten, and Kitase was unaware of the significance of Zack's addition until playtesting. Kitase reviewed Nojima's scenario and felt that Cloud, who was neither single-minded nor righteous, offered a fresh take on a protagonist. The love triangle between Cloud, Tifa Lockhart, and Aerith Gainsborough was also viewed as novel for the series. Nojima likened Cloud and Tifa's relationship to one of friends since nursery school, and he compared Aerith to a transfer student arriving mid-term.

In early versions of the script, Sephiroth deceives Cloud into thinking that he had created him, and he has the ability to exert control over Cloud's movements. Cloud also somehow injures Tifa prior to the game's events, leaving her with memory loss of the event and a large scar on her back. As in the finished game, Cloud discovers that Shinra's experiments and his own insecurities made him susceptible to Sephiroth's manipulation. Kitase rejected a proposed scene written by Masato Kato involving Cloud and Tifa walking out of a Chocobo stable the morning before the final battle, with Tifa following only after checking around. Kitase found it "too intense" and Nojima described the proposal as "extreme"; however, Kitase maintained a toned-down scene written by Kato depicting the night before, which has Tifa speak a risqué line of dialogue before a fade to black. According to Nojima, none of the staff expected that the scene, despite dialogue, "would be something so important".

Nojima wanted to write scenes in such a way that players themselves could decide what Cloud was thinking. Nojima used Cloud's foggy memories as a device to provide details about the world that would be unknown to the player but considered common knowledge to its inhabitants. To emphasize Cloud's personality, event planners repeated elements they found interesting, such as Toriyama's standing animation and Cloud's use of the phrase "not interested".