Who is the guy in the trailer? Us or Arbert?

[Iscah]

Spoilers, but... Urianger's vision of our future was a ruse.

To be exact, the information is accurate but the source is a ruse.

[Erendis]

To me CGI midlander is sort of like us, but not exactly because sometimes he seems to be observing from different perspective, ex events surrounding Nanamo's "death".

[LineageRazor]

The person from the trailers is meant to be a stand-in for us, the Warrior of Light.

Ardbert is a character who was designed to resemble the WoL from the trailer, but he is not that same person. You can think of it as the same kind of random coincidence that gave us the (tragically short-lived) traveler we met at the beginning of Shadowbringers who resembles Brendt/Brennan/Bremondt, but has no real relation to any of them.

[Avarant]

It's a generic stand in meant to be the WoL. The trailer isn't literal either, that scene represents the struggle against the flood of light.

Plus the quote made by the gremlin guy is actually said by someone else in Shadowbringers...

[Avarant]

Ardbert didn't experience the Battle of Silvertear Skies or the Calamity, he never went to Ishgard, never sparred with Lyse at Rhalgr's Reach or became a samurai in Kugane, and never fought any Sin Eaters, ever.

The trailer midlander is a stand-in for the player character. He also appears in all the gameplay trailers for every expansion and patch, in the player character's spot. He's the default appearance selectable for the benchmarks.

Ardbert & co. looking like us is a meta reference on the devs' part. It's meant to show you "hey, they're just like you!". The dev team must have thought it would be cool. No confusion necessary, lol.

I like the idea that there are characters who look like derplander that all of this makes way too much sense to, inherently.

[LystAP]

We are Ardbert. Ardbert is us. In the cinematic. In game. It doesn't matter. We are all Ardbert. Ardbert is us.

All else equal, it's a interesting way to connect our in-game character with the cinematic character. It doesn't matter. We're all one soul. Not only are the devs saying they're just like us, they also might be implying that even if we don't look like derplander, we still got a derplander soul.

I hope Ardbert enjoys being a woman.