The Road to 5.0

[Alleluia]

This comes up a lot, but the people who made the scene just wanted a dramatic anime-esque angle where you were seen from the perspective of Thordan - a delusional zealot who thought his path was righteous. If, in retrospect, you choose to perceive this as foreshadowing, cool ~ it just wasn't intended by the cinematography of that cutscene.

Is that from an interview or something?

[Theodric]

Is that from an interview or something?

It is. From what I recall Yoshi-P was asked whether there was 'something more' to the scene in which Thordan sees a shadowy aura surrounding the Warrior of Light. His answer was something along the lines of it simply being done because it would look neat given the context of the scene. Which is fair enough, except the game makes a habit of foreshadowing plot elements years in advance as the core story arc is planned out already and the developers are very reluctant to confirm any major plot elements in interviews due to a strict anti-spoiler policy.

Pretty much any Q&A session involving the lore to do with major plot elements is usually answered very vaguely, not at all or countered with a joke. We do get some nuggets of information from time to time, though a lot of probing questions tend to get a 'no comment'.

[Anonymoose]

Is that from an interview or something?

This was a combination of things. First, the cutscene team wanted to do something really dramatic. You see that a lot in anime—that dramatic perspective. The other half is that you’re literally seeing it through his eyes. He’s convinced himself that the way he was doing things was the correct way and that he was in the supreme right. Then you come in and you break all of that down. In his mind’s eye, you’re the evil one—and the last thing he sees is you in that evil image.

/10characters

[Alleluia]

/10characters

Thank you.

[ObsidianFire]

The scene with Rhamu is interesting for another reason. As much as the Ascians are associated with Darkness, they are always referred to as "Bringers of Chaos". There's no place in the game that identifies something opposite of Chaos for the WoL... Except maybe the scenes with Rhamu.

[we show Ramuh the Levin Crystal]

Thou bearest the crystal which I bestowed upon my wayward charges. That they should entrust so precious a gift to thee...

Thou standest apart from thy kin. Thou art the Bringer of Light, aye... but there is something more in thee...

Very well, I shall consider thy proposal... shouldst thou survive my trial.

If thou wouldst champion the cause of harmony, I must have proof that thou art fit to play the role. Weather mine ire, and prove to me thereby that thou hast strength enough to stay the Darkness which threateneth to consume thee.

Yet if thou shouldst be found wanting, know that all men shall perish in the storm of my judgement!

Come to me, Bringer of Light. I shall await thee on the field of battle!

[battle at the Striking Tree]

I have taken thy measure, Bringer of Light.

And I judge thee a worthy champion. The task of excising the sin that hath taken root in man's heart is thine.

Shrink not from employing thy strength in service to the forest, and the wider realm beyond. Like hungering shadows do the enemies of harmony gather, and meekness will but feed them.

If man is to be delivered from the Dark, it shall be by thy guiding Light alone. Stray not from the path, for if thou dost, thy people shall be truly lost...

I don't know if he's being general or specific with how he talks about harmony, but could be seen as an opposite of Chaos and one with different connotations then Order. The idea of Harmony does fit better with how Hydaelyn is portrayed then the idea of Order does IMO.

Critical questions:

- as an aetherial being, is Ramuh reliable in his knowledge of Light and Dark? Or does it rely on what they sylphs know when they summoned him? (And in that case, what do they know?)

Ramuh is not the only primal that knows very weird information. Ifrit knows of how tempering works (and doesn't work) and knows you can't be tempered by him because of the Blessing of Light. He also says the Paragons warned him of you. And back in 1.0, he knows that other primals exist (Leviathot, Titian and Garuda) and that if you had been tempered by them, he'd know it. Titian knows that you were the one who killed Ifrit. Garuda knows that she is sustained by the aether from crystals and the faith of the Ixal and gets the other beast tribes to summon their primals so that she can feast on them. She's also another primal who knows who is protecting the WoL from being tempered.

It is worth noting that all the primals that seem to know other primals exist or know why they can't temper the WoL are all "resummoned" primals. They've been summoned before, and been sent back to the Lifestream only to be summoned again. We don't see any of this kind of talk from "new" primals who have been summoned for the first time. One the one hand, I can see primals having whatever common knowledge the people summoning them have. On the other... knowledge of who and what Hydaelyn and the Echo are aren't common knowledge at all. And there aren't many primals who seem know that they are primals (I think the only "new" primal that does is Lakshmi). But the "resummoned" primals not only know they are primals but that other beings like them exist.

I can certainly see a case being made (base on circumstantial evidence) that the primals/eikons learn something about what they are while hanging out in the Lifestream between summons, no matter what state their aether is at the time...

[WhiteArchmage]

I don't know if he's being general or specific with how he talks about harmony, but could be seen as an opposite of Chaos and one with different connotations then Order. The idea of Harmony does fit better with how Hydaelyn is portrayed then the idea of Order does IMO.

Worth noting that Dissidia Final Fantasy points Chaos as the God of...Chaos, and Cosmos as the Goddess of Harmony, with them being opposites. Helps that Harmony doesn't carry the unfortunate correlation with stagnancy and sterility that Order or Law do. Could be a coincidence, could be clue

[Theodric]

Worth noting that Dissidia Final Fantasy points Chaos as the God of...Chaos, and Cosmos as the Goddess of Harmony, with them being opposites. Helps that Harmony doesn't carry the unfortunate correlation with stagnancy and sterility that Order or Law do. Could be a coincidence, could be clue

Given that a game as obscure as Chocobo Dungeon ended up influencing a portion of FFXIV, I'm also hoping that the Dissidia games serve to influence something as well. Type-0, too, though that may be less likely now that Tabata has left Square Enix. At least we got most of the hairstyles from that game!

[Guiballad]

One thing i’m not sure has already been brought up is the fact that the Shadowbringers logo is the ONLY one between all major releases to feature a single individual. All other logos show some kind of group of people which i think are meant to represent we and our fellow adventurers but not with ShB.

Also starting with 2.0 the regular box arts for the expansions/releases always feature the main bad guy of the MSQ: Gaius for 2.0; Hraesvelgr (but it was supposed to be Niddhog) for 3.0; and Zenos for 4.0. Now i recall that near the end of the ShB reveal at the fanfest they showed a tentative box art that was a CGI render of the DRK Derplander in a pose that wasn’t in the teaser (which i unfortunately can’t find anywhere).

While it could be just them trying something new i feel like this shift in design philosophy is mean to be symbolic of our journey. I believe we might be acting as a double agent in ShB mainly based on the japanese title and those design cues. I’m really not gonna go into details as those will be wrong without the info from 4.5 but i think the whole thing might be some kind of divine gambit in order to save the world. Maybe Zodiark isn’t the actual enemy but the Ascians? Wouldn’t be that far fetched for them to have to have deviated from their intended path or something like that. So as to take them and their puppet empire down without a full out war, because that will cause the final Rejoining and the actual end of the world as we know it, we need to become the Warrior of Darkness (Maybe Hydaelin "releases her claim" on us and we have to "serve" Zodiark for a while at least? Idk) and take them down from within.

I also think not only is the roleplay mechanic gonna be really used throughout the MSQ but with the whole “Trust” system being implemented we’re gonna see it being really expanded. I have a feeling they might do something similar to the Ala Mhigo/Doma thing in SB where we switch between two storylines but one of these might be just told through the roleplay system so it fits better in universe (plus they can just focus in making a single unified good design and we don’t have a repeat of what actually happened in SB). In the wildest possibilities we even get a full rp dungeon.

Honestly the next live letter/patch can't come soon enough...

[ShinShimon]

I'm thinking it's more and more likely that we don't see Garlemald proper in 5.0. By the end of 5.x, we'll have made peace with at least one major faction in the Empire, and that will serve as the excuse for us to be able to operate relatively freely in Garlean territory, with the 6.0 city being Garlemald itself. The story will probably be focused on a full-blown Garlean civil war, and wrap up any of the loose ends from the 5.x storyline.

Once 6.0 comes out, it'll be 2021, over 10 years after Yoshida started on FF14, and 8 years after ARR's release. He's said in the past that he wants to do his own game someday, and IIRC he mentioned 10 years as a good amount of time to devote to FF14. I wouldn't be surprised if he's planning for 6.x to fully wrap up the story arc that started with 1.0, and pass off FF14 to someone else. By that point, we will have seen all of the three continents, and future expansions can be stand-alone stories that involve exploring the rest of the world (Meracydia, the New World, Old Sharlayan).

[KageTokage]

I'm thinking it's more and more likely that we don't see Garlemald proper in 5.0. By the end of 5.x, we'll have made peace with at least one major faction in the Empire, and that will serve as the excuse for us to be able to operate relatively freely in Garlean territory, with the 6.0 city being Garlemald itself. The story will probably be focused on a full-blown Garlean civil war, and wrap up any of the loose ends from the 5.x storyline.

Once 6.0 comes out, it'll be 2021, over 10 years after Yoshida started on FF14, and 8 years after ARR's release. He's said in the past that he wants to do his own game someday, and IIRC he mentioned 10 years as a good amount of time to devote to FF14. I wouldn't be surprised if he's planning for 6.x to fully wrap up the story arc that started with 1.0, and pass off FF14 to someone else. By that point, we will have seen all of the three continents, and future expansions can be stand-alone stories that involve exploring the rest of the world (Meracydia, the New World, Old Sharlayan).

With the implications that we might be having to visit the first shard to resolve this whole flood of light business, I can't imagine them being able to resolve the Garlemald conflict in one expansion without it feeling horribly rushed if we're getting a 50/50 zone split again between southern Othard/Ilsabard and the first shard's light-scoured lands.

It does seem probable that we might just be establishing a foothold in their lands and making more allies within the Empire before we launch a full-fledged assault on the capital to weed out the Ascian corruption.