Gender locked race?

[Melichoir]

I would note that the person we all reference for outside info dropped Viera like it was nothing but was very reticent on saying anything about the other race. As if it was exceptionally important to either a trailer reveal, story, or something along those lines.

Viera coming with the whole Final Fantasy Tactics dungeon happening is to be honest not that mind blowing or shocking, I mean it's /awesome/ news for those who want to play Viera but are we really shocked about them? I'd say no, felt like we could see it coming.

Meanwhile we could have an impending wall of lore coming to smack us in the face (figurative, ofc lol). Something that even a person leaking information would be like "oh my oh my, I can't say anything about this!!!". It's also why I theorize that maybe SE did this on purpose, to test what leaking info like this would look like (because conveniently SE is not bound to anything leaked, this is honestly so nice for them because they can announce stuff without anyone going "BUT YOU PROMISED US" lol). It could of course still be info SE didn't want out, but I find it "possible" this has been orchestrated.

I was reaching a bit when I referenced all the lion lore in the trailer, the Lamasu (winged lion creature with a crown, that protects against evil), the Cherub based off the wing lion (history), both relating to Zodiac in history, Lionheart job with the lion/ronso primal emblem on the blade (not on Thancred's but is in FF8/in our pre-order item reward).. but.. one of the lines in the lore book that I've been caught on is that it says the cherub (kuribu) was made in the vision of some otherworldly race ("made in the image of transcendent beings from yet another plane"). I mean Kuribu looks pretty human like so it could be nothing, or sign a third race isn't that different lol but.. eh. Maybe this all ties together?

I'd still say the potential for the importance of lion-like is laden in the trailer more so than any info of Viera. Viera is as to Blue Mage is to Shadowbringers, sort of a 4.5 reveal shared between Stormblood and Shadowbringers. If this second race is real, it appears it would belong explicitly to Shadowbringers (and maybe the cliff hanger close of Stormblood).

It could be orchestrated, but I dont find that likely from the practical marketing sense. I apologize for bringing that point up constantly but its important because businesses will make decisions for money purposes, broadly. This means how some of ShB and any content related to it (races, classes, etc) will be affected by business acumen. Just to recap, there are business strategies that suffer in promoting your product by not hinting at a second race in any capacity. Generating hype around a potential second new race (even if its gender locked) is a net win for them no matter how you cut it. Doing the reverse, the way I see it, hurts them. So it doesnt seem like a practical move on their part. Even with the AuRa, there were hints and etc regarding them before the full reveal. There was something notable in game. We really havent seen that for Hrothgar. And as a point, we would not even be discussing Hrothgar to any serious extent if it wasnt for the french leak. That kicked it off more than any actual thing. We could assume Devs did that purposefully, but that is a super clunky way to let players in on things. It is literally purposefully bugging out your product (read as breaking it) just to let people subtly know theres a new race? They couldve put out an ambiguous tweet about Hrothgar and that wouldve been more legit. A simple mention of them in the MSQ as an off hand comment wouldve made better bang. It just doesnt seem likely.


As for the Trailer, I dismissed most of it when it was showing the Amdapori Weapons. Pre-existing lore (if I read it right) points to the lion, Kuribu, and etc as being weapons specifically designed to fight against Machi black magic in the war of the magi. You could say that theyre weapons of light or white magic - and to defeat them youd have to go using dark magic. Dark Magic, Dark Knight, connect connection? Thats how I interpreted it.

Could it be a reference or a tie in to something? Sure. But do I believe it to be? No. It seems more likely to tie into the themes and story of the xpac rather than referencing a race. It's a little to opaque, even for Yoshi P and SE.

But maybe there is something to it. Could simply be we will get two new races in the game. The first race will be given to us at launch (Viera, both M and F) and for story purposes, Hrothgar will be introduced to us at a later time in the xpac. Maybe that race is locked behind an MSQ wall - you cant phantasia into a Hrothgar unless you completed a certain part of the MSQ. Wont make 100% perfect sense from a lore/story telling point, but it will push people to go further into the expansion if they want to play the new race.