FFXVI and XIV connection theory

[DamianFatale]

Exactly, also the development team outright stated in a Letter From the Producer Live a few years ago that all FF worlds are basically seperate dimensions/universes, they're not other Shards to Hydaelyn or on other planets in the same universe - names of places from other FF games that appear in FFXIV are just references to those other games with little to no direct story connection to them (they're just fanservice, nothing more):



Note that was many years before they added the Return to Ivalice raid however, but the idea is still current - each FF world takes places in it's own seperate universe (despite some hinting at connections between some games - the infamous tongue-in-cheek FFVII-FFX link being one), and that will be the same with FFXVI.

As Cleretic stated, the Dissidia games already stated that every FF game is it's own independent universe loosely connected by the Dimensional Rift, but, to confuse matters, this is a seperate Dimensional Rift to FFXIV's one, so... the distinction needs to be stated (and to confuse matters even more, the other name for the FF-reoccurring Dimensional Rift is... the Void) as they're seperate things with the same name.

I agree with you, though I don't think there is a separate dimensional rift. I think the rift is always the same, if it weren't it would make things too complicated.

Though fan service alone doesn't explain why we see Fran twice in the series as two entirely separate people. There has to be some kind of lore justification for that, even if its just an echos across universes.

[Cleretic]

Though fan service alone doesn't explain why we see Fran twice in the series as two entirely separate people.

...Yes it does.

We see that several times over in this game: Tenzen (from XI), Krile and Galuf (from V), Doga, Unei and Xande (from III), Matoya (from I). Hell, literally right now in the current story we have Golbez and the Fiends from IV, and in the exact story you're describing we have Ba'gamnan, Ramza, Agrias, Mustadio, and Cidolfus. And that's not getting into the ridiculously long list of returning named and figures across the series that keep turning up ONLY because of the fanservice.

Sometimes, there's not a lore reason for a thing: sometimes it's just that Biggs and Wedge are fun go-to names, or that the story that they're currently telling could use a Matoya.