Final Fantasy 14 director Yoshi-P implies that Dawntrail's story will have something to do with the Twelve and the Ascians still, and my brain is on fire

Final Fantasy 14: Dawntrail will be arriving later this month—and with it, the start of a new epic story arc similar to the 10-year saga spanning from A Realm Reborn to Dawntrail. In case you're completely uninitiated, firstly I should warn you that this article will be full of spoilers for Final Fantasy 14: Endwalker. Secondly, you should know that FF14 has a habit of being the best in the business when it comes to foreshadowing.

Now, some of this foreshadowing is retroactive—I don't doubt that the setting's Ascians (tragic villains who wished to see their world rejoined) were just nasty wizards with red masks initially. Any good writing involves a little narrative sleight-of-hand. Still, what's set up in one expansion may be of vital importance 10 years later—which means that we're all going to be ravenously combing Dawntrail for scraps that'll pay off years from now, when I'm deep in my midlife crisis.

One such scrap was shared courtesy of YouTuber Jessie Cox on his channel during the game's media tour, while in a group interview with Naoki Yoshida (Yoshi-P). Cox says that, during the roundtable, one interviewer asked whether there was any current content Yoshi-P would recommend current players complete before beginning Dawntrail.

«After he let out a very long 'ugh',» Cox says, then «he said two things. One, do Myths of the Realm, the new alliance raid series from Endwalker, and two, do you remember all the names of the Convocation of Fourteen?»

Dear reader, my brain is on fire, because that's not what I was expecting. I'd assumed that Dawntrail would, fittingly, introduce us to new threats, enemies, and cosmic problems. Before I make a spiderweb out of red string on my corkboard, though, I'd like to break some things down.

Firstly, the Myths of the Realm raid features the Twelve—the setting's gods, revealed to be close friends and colleagues of Venat, an Ascian who disagreed with the whole «let's smush the planets together» thing that later ascended to