FFXVI and XIV connection theory

[Cleretic]

Personally I think it'd be a really bad idea for them to do a XVI event soon, because XVI really needs the time to define and declare its own voice separate from XIV; it's got a shadow to move out of in a way no other crossovers have had, so it needs some time for people to stop treating it as being so linked to XIV that people genuinely think Clive is some version of the XIV WoL. And personally I hope the rewards are skippable because I don't like XVI, but that's me.

That sort of space would also give room o figure out rewards, too. Right now nothing about XVI looks like it'd make for very interesting cosmetics, especially across genders; I like Benedikta's outfit, but let's be honest, guys ain't getting that. But if fans suddenly rally around a character's appearance, there we go!

[Cilia]

Personally I think it'd be a really bad idea for them to do a XVI event soon, because XVI really needs the time to define and declare its own voice separate from XIV; it's got a shadow to move out of in a way no other crossovers have had, so it needs some time for people to stop treating it as being so linked to XIV that people genuinely think Clive is some version of the XIV WoL. And personally I hope the rewards are skippable because I don't like XVI, but that's me.

That sort of space would also give room o figure out rewards, too. Right now nothing about XVI looks like it'd make for very interesting cosmetics, especially across genders; I like Benedikta's outfit, but let's be honest, guys ain't getting that. But if fans suddenly rally around a character's appearance, there we go!

To be fair, I don't think XVI is going to have a lot of trouble distinguishing itself from XIV once it actually comes out. Just in the Demo content alone there's more blood and swearing than any game in the franchise previously (Benedikta alone easily beats out Jack Garland's foul mouth when she starts losing), though distinguishing itself from the Ivalice games and Game of Thrones (and vis a vis the Wars of the Roses) it's transparently inspired by might be a harder sell.

Whether those mean people will take a shine to it... that I don't know. I want to like it, but for stylish action I already have DMC5 (or SoP if I want something explicitly Final Fantasy derived), and the political aspects of it don't interest me because I've seen so much of that kind of thing I easily figured out who the traitor was in the prologue long before they revealed it.

Though XVI being the inspiration for an expansion isn't out of the realm of possibility. Before XV came out we got a lot of Thordan, and Knights of the Round related stuff which was tied to XV in a big way. Especially with the movie Kingsglaive. Its clear that Square Enix was priming our familiarity around these classic summons. I noticed that before XVI, we gradually got a lot more phoenix content. A fire bird inspired glamour on the mog station, TWO extra phoenix mounts, etc. Much more than just the stuff we got from Suzaku. It feels intentional.

I also noticed around the time of the FFVII: Rebirth release we gradually got new FFVII stuff in the form of the weapons. Square Enix may be influencing the devs of XIV in ways than we normally realize. It wouldn't surprise me if board members approached Yoshi P, and were like "This game brings a lot of money and attention. Can you think of a way to incorporate things that have to do with ____?" It doesn't sound unlike Square Enix at all.

Except Heavensward was a bit of a mish-mash between classical elements from IV and VII (Dragoons feature heavily into Ishgard's culture, of which IV's Kain Highwind is the most famous from the franchise and is fittingly a minion included in the Special Edition of that expansion, while the final boss is a recontextualized Knights of the Round from VII), political intrigue from the Ivalice series, and the concept of Original Sin in Christian traditions.

The Weapons are references to VII, though again recontextualized, and the story surrounding them has nothing to do with anything from VII (other than the arenas they're fought in - Diamond Weapon excluded - bearing physical similarities to where they were fought in VII, the story is a big shout-out to mecha anime, especially the Mobile Suit Gundam series), characters from that game don't appear here, and other than statuettes of them there's nothing special about the raid series. It's on the level of Heavensward's Warring Triad referencing VI, not XIII or XV's dumping their protagonist onto Etheirys for a short bit of time. To say nothing of recontexualized cities, landmarks, and characters being imported from Ivalice whole cloth.

I'm not saying there aren't references or cosmetics from VII in this game - there transparently are, though those are mostly limited to the Weapons, Cloud's hairstyle (a rare FanFest exclusive), the SDS Fenrir, Cloud's Advent Children outfit as a Veteran Reward, and the trio of minions. Given VII's popularity you'd think they would include more weapons and outfits (even X has more useable PC outfits for goodness' sake!), but such classics as Cloud and Tifa's outfits and the Buster Sword remain unavailable.

(They don't want to disappoint MCHs who want Barret's gun-arm(s) as weapons, I guess.)

... which to circle back around leaves me questioning what exactly they'd offer as rewards for a XVI crossover event, given other than Torgal being adorable as a pup and Benedikta's outfit, nothing in it really stands out to me. Clive's Brand tattoo could work, I guess?

[Theodric]

And personally I hope the rewards are skippable because I don't like XVI, but that's me.

That's interesting because the game isn't even out yet as of the time of this post! From what I recall you've claimed to be a fan of the Ivalice games in the past, so you may be pleasantly surprised given that the development team have set out to design FFXVI as something of a love letter to those games in particular.

I do agree that they'd be better off waiting for the dust to settle before putting a crossover event into FFXIV but I don't get the impression that they'd struggle with potential rewards. A mount and/or minion of Torgal is something they could offer alongside Clive's hairstyle and outfit - which would have rather broad appeal, I believe. Following established trends, they'd also have ample room to add a Triple Triad card for Clive as well.

If we're really lucky, now that FFXVI is basically complete we'll see the developers who left FFXIV to work on FFXVI make a triumphant return. I think that'd be delightful, personally.

Though they may simply be assigned to a new, different project instead. Time will tell, I suppose.

[Cleretic]

That's interesting because the game isn't even out yet as of the time of this post! From what I recall you've claimed to be a fan of the Ivalice games in the past, so you may be pleasantly surprised given that the development team have set out to design FFXVI as something of a love letter to those games in particular.

First of all: no, you don't recall, because I haven't played most of the Ivalice games. I played XII, and am mostly lukewarm on it; it looks nice, and there's some decent ideas in the writing, but it probably says something that I remembered about five plot beats and four locations (and incidentally, the only one of those locations I remembered that actually gets referenced by Dissidia, XIV, and SoP was Rabanastre, so clearly I forgot what the developers expected me not to). I like what Matsuno wrote in XIV, and as proper research to understand Nybeth Obdilord I did a lot of research into Tactics Ogre back before we knew Reborn was happening, but I mostly haven't touched the Ivalice stuff. Blame Tactics only being currently available on iOS and Android with touch controls, while having an awful UI for it.

Second of all: at this point we've had more trailers than I can count, several gameplay previews, a solid handful of character descriptions and windows into the story, and a whole demo. At what point am I allowed to look at all this and say 'I don't like this' in a way that will be accepted? Because personally, I feel like we passed that point quite a long ways back when we found out the gameplay was basically Devil May Cry, a series that I hate. (And if you're the type to say 'actually it's more like Dragon's Dogma', I hated that game even more.) So I'm a little annoyed that people just keep acting like I'm weird or irrational for already having made a decision about if I'm interested in this game based on exactly the things they put out to help you decide if you're interested in this game.