Connected Worlds

This will be a few posts, because of the character limit.

If there's anything I love more than a good crossover in games, I haven't found it yet. Maybe it's functioning grappling hooks, but that's neither here, nor there.

I enjoy speculating on the possibilities of Eorzea being vaguely or remotely connected to other worlds in the franchise, but where games like IX and X allude to them with easter eggs, games like Dissidia and XIV go further.

I know for the most part, we all just say it's for nostalgia, or because Square Enix reuses old enemies and assets (nowadays out of tradition and self-reference more than anything else), but it's more fun to see similarities, and ponder on them.

It's been more or less confirmed that the Void is the only constant between worlds, and even then, it's iffy. However, with the Void being the space between, that means that it sits as a membrane betwixt any one world and another, while occupying its own plane as well. After all, that's essentially where we're going in the next Tower patch.

With that in mind, this could very well be the same Cloud of Darkness that is encountered in FFIII.

The thing is, time doesn't seem to have such an ironclad grip on the Void. Dissidia, from what I can tell, has a significant chunk of its conflict taking place in the void, uniting characters from unrelated eras of their vastly different worlds, dubbing them the Warriors of Light, and setting them against the very being which nearly destroyed all worlds in its thirst to rule the first- that of the original Final Fantasy.

We can, for the most part, confirm that the Void is not just another word for "outer space," for if it were, Cid (VII) would have seen a much less comprehensive cosmos when the team accompanied him there. So how does one get there? Ideally of one's own means, but for us, that's often not the case. We've seen characters lost to the Void, or taken to the Void, but never of our volition. They are stolen by creatures that live on the other side of a space that can't be crossed without somehow employing a fold through a higher dimension than ours.

Somehow we yank creatures through. Occasionally we will blunder into the presence of a hostile voidsent beast or beauty of some kind, though the results will rarely differ. They've punched into our world and we are restricted from theirs in a way that does not sound entirely dissimilar from another realm of spirits and demons from a separate fantasy title of vaguely similar persuasions...

We can be fairly certain we won't be traveling to worlds that are familiar to us from the franchise's past, at least not in the foreseeable future, but I can't help but wonder whether we will travel the Void itself. It brings to mind a similar abysmal "landscape" of floating islands and remnants of eras that passed beyond the realm of imagination or comprehension. The world of Promyvion clings to one's boots, grasping at the material of reality or mass, while lacking the substance or strength to persist anywhere else.

I venture that the path to Promathia was the first taste of the Void for those of us who walked it.

With the arrival of the true Gilgamesh (minus a sorely missed Enkidu, but plus one brilliant rooster), Lightning, Shantotto, and various heralds of other worlds, and given the penchant this dev team has for reveling in the storied annals of this franchise's past, I expect to see the Void at some point, and echoes of the chronological pasts and futures of the series.

After all that pomp and verbiage, I'm left with one question for all of you, including any Loremasters who happen by...

... thoughts?

I like discussing things like this.

*sighs* Not this again...

Don't take everything you see at face value - the development team already came out long ago and said that Hydaelyn is not directly connected to any other FF world - the references to other FF games and characters are just for fanservice and are not the 'originals' (excepting Gilgamesh, Shantotto and Lightning's appearances in the game, which were rather convoluted in explaining their appearances here anyway). The Crystal Tower was also confirmed as not being the FFIII version, but again, just a name reference.

This is the quote from the development team that all but shouts this (that was formerly found here, but the thread in question seems to have disappeared, but I saved Bayohne's post for posterity):

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bayohne

Q55: There are a lot of names from Ivalice such as Dalmasca, Belias, and Zodiak that have been mentioned, is there some connection between Hydaelyn and Ivalice?

A55: To be absolutely clear, there is no connection between FFXIV’s Hydaelyn and FFXII’s Ivalice. Likewise there is no connection with FFXI’s Vana’diel. Each are their own individual world. Based on this, there are connections between the things that appear in the world, and we’ll be revealing more in the future.

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Think of FFXIV like FFIX - it's a celebration of every FF game that came before it, but it is not a 'hub world' like Dissidia. Yes, there's the Void, but even here in FFXIV, that's just a placeholder term used by Eorzeans to describe 'anything considered 'unEorzean' - hells, they even call squirrels and mice 'Voidsent'.

So apart from a few minor direct crossovers like the Lightning event and Gilgamesh, references to past FF games are just in name only and are not directly connecting FFXIV to any other FF title.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Davy_M_Jones

(minus a sorely missed Enkidu, but plus one brilliant rooster)

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I think we got a bargain.

But on topic, I agree with Enkidoh. This idea seems to appear every few weeks from somewhere, but the joy of Final Fantasy IS that it doesn't have a connected universe. It builds up a library of fascinating themes, items, and myths without ever falling pray to the bloated (and confusing) canon so common in other franchises that last this long.

Taking it a face value, it certainly is painful to read before finding the energy to type out a sigh and forge ahead in the endeavor to take the wind out of one's sails, but I'm less interested in connecting the worlds, so much as FURTHER celebrating them.

In spite of official quotes given thus far, I merely nod to the probability of seeing remnants of the past in future events and expansions. If the crystal tower were EXACTLY the same one found in FF3, I'd posture the probability of the world being the same as well, but I'm not. I just like the idea of further chunks of other worlds being mirrored in Eorzea, or glimpsed in the Void.

And I think it wise to contue calling it the Void until we go there in the next Tower dungeon to discover otherwise.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by WellFooled

I think we got a bargain.

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And I do agree to some extent. The rooster has fit the tone of the plotline relating to Gilgamesh MUCH better than any of his previous versions would have.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Davy_M_Jones

I just like the idea of further chunks of other worlds being mirrored in Eorzea

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You can be sure of this. Some are just a few patches away. The Golden Saucer and Bismark (the summon, not the restaurant) are poised to make some long awaited returns in the series.