Quote Originally Posted by KariTheFox View Post
I'm sure concocting elaborate conspiracy theories about last minute rewrites must be fun, but I think a simpler explanation is that a story was written with a moral framework and belief system you don't agree with.
I'm not sure why you keep brushing it off as a 'conspiracy theory' when multiple people have linked you the interview where it has been stated outright by the developers themselves that an expansion was cut out entirely and the story was rewritten right up until the last minute. Granted, you might have conveniently missed it each and every time it happened but hopefully you'll see it this time around!

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme..._with_yoshida/

Interviewer: When did you decide to bring the story so far to a conclusion?

Ishikawa: After Shadowbringers released, around the end of 2019, Image Studio [note: the CGI studio within Square Enix that produces the high-quality cinematics in various SE game] had to be provided with storyboards. In autumn and winter of that year, we went on a residential together in order to decide the main points of the story for the next expansion. But the problem was… we’re used to the writing process, and so feeling that “here and here are the remaining parts of the story we have to talk about, so let’s accept the rest”, the residential went very smoothly. I was in charge of filling in the details of the story elements, but when I looked at the structure of the content again, I thought “this might be okay for just another expansion, but if this is labelled the ‘finale’ is it really okay?” So I reworked the story from the plot outline. The end result was ready 2 days before the deadline.