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.

[DamianFatale]

Full-scale XVI eikons would have to be a Trial; they're a size category or two bigger than XIV's, on the small end of the scale. Titan Lost is about as big as the Mt. Gulg Talos...

... but yeah, a crossover event is kind of inevitable, though I expect it'll be like the Lightning or Noctis ones. More the latter than the former, given FATEs aren't exactly popular content. Not sure what rewards would be except for Torgal (pup minion / adult mount) though.

As for a direct connection? Don't expect anything concrete, even though the two do have some similar terminology likely stemming from having the same dev team (writers).

(Will there ever be a VII Remake / Rebirth crossover making Cloud's hairstyle more widely available? Will it include Tifa / Aerith's hairstyles for parity? Will they be useable by Viera / Hrothgar? Stay tuned!)

I wouldn't put it past Yoshi P to order it to be a bit different for a crossover this time. It could be more extensive than past crossovers, because of his involvement in the game. It is his baby, and he will likely want to make the crossover something extremely special, and dedicated to it. I wouldn't be surprised if it were a trial in all honesty, or if they went to a great length to include a lot of mounts, minions, weapons, and glamours.

Another possibility is it could be added in more than just a single crossover. They could add new veteran rewards, gold saucer, and other methods of gaining these items too. It wouldn't entirely surprise me if for the next fan fest we got XVI minions as the bonuses. Though, for those they usually go with minions that match the inspiration for the upcoming expansion, they could always break tradition in favor of XVI.

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.

[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.

[SannaR]

Fan service is definitely why XVI's Cid is also named Cidolfus and just happens to be the dominant of a thunder God. Well a thunder Ekion. Or why in E10 the background to that fight is X's Thunder planes. And actually that boss design makes a lot more sense. Not sure why it just took me this long. As Ixion is X's thunder Aeion/summon and so of course it got combined with Ramuh. All the while of being apart of a love letter to VIII.

[SilversLyu]

Fan service is definitely why XVI's Cid is also named Cidolfus and just happens to be the dominant of a thunder God. Well a thunder Ekion. Or why in E10 the background to that fight is X's Thunder planes. And actually that boss design makes a lot more sense. Not sure why it just took me this long. As Ixion is X's thunder Aeion/summon and so of course it got combined with Ramuh. All the while of being apart of a love letter to VIII.

Funnily enough that went over my head as well, the FFX reference is so spot on yet so subtle. But when it comes to fanservice, yeah it is easier to keep it that way or be not too specific about it or they would risk opening all sorts of problems with convoluted things like the multiverse, and it rarely is included in media as it is. If you look at time travel that can be seen more often, and that one already is convoluted as heck so the multiverse doubles down on it even. Which is not to say it is impossible, in a tiny and vague scale they are doing this already with the likes of Fran, but they also dont want to bloat FFXIV with other FF's too much I can imagine, keeping it original.

[Mostly_Raxus]

Theory: Yoshi-P's lala will be the final final boss of 16

[Cleretic]

Funnily enough that went over my head as well, the FFX reference is so spot on yet so subtle. But when it comes to fanservice, yeah it is easier to keep it that way or be not too specific about it or they would risk opening all sorts of problems with convoluted things like the multiverse, and it rarely is included in media as it is. If you look at time travel that can be seen more often, and that one already is convoluted as heck so the multiverse doubles down on it even. Which is not to say it is impossible, in a tiny and vague scale they are doing this already with the likes of Fran, but they also dont want to bloat FFXIV with other FF's too much I can imagine, keeping it original.

Final Fantasy does use its multiverse for stories, but it confines them solely to the Dissidia games, and Stranger of Paradise (which is basically a Dissidia game from another direction). Well, and Gilgamesh.

Which is a good idea, because it stops any Final Fantasy game's setting, story and characters from imposing itself as somehow more important. You can have your fun over in the big silly crossovers where Shantotto and Ultimecia have a sick-burn-off, Y'shtola decides the best use of her time is to troll Squall, and the Type-0 kids get to enjoy not living in a horrific hellscape of eternal war. Meanwhile, the stories can be told standalone without interfering with each other.

...hell, they tried to do things differently once, and it's one of the multiple reasons that FFIV The After Years is widely disliked among the fanbase. Pretty good reason they abandoned that approach to linking the games together. (Protip, do not imply that every single other FF cast and world has died to your villain, you'll piss off everyone who prefers them)

[SilverArrow20XX]

The Interdimensional Rift is just the area of non-space between space.
There isn't really multiple Rifts, nor is it a singular area. It's all encompassing in the same way "space" is.
The Void is used interchangeably with it, but I think refers more to the primordial energy aspect of it.
It is the capital N Nothingness like Chaos is in Greek Mythology.
Everything, including Space itself, was born from it, and everything will return to it.
In the beginning, there was only the Void, and the non-area it existed in, is the Rift, and the bubbles of existence it birthed are "not the Rift".

[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?

[Arciel]

there's really no more connection between XIV and XIV than there is XIV and any other FF game universe. each are their own dimension with their own laws of physics and the universe, and it is possible to cross between then (through the Interdimensional Rift) but is relatively uncommon.

recurring themes, motifs, people or places exist because, well it is the Final Fantasy franchise, but i think from a lore perspective, you can think of it as coincidences due to similarities in all the universes. like pretty much all of them have humans, after all.