It is a good time to be a Final Fantasy 14 fan. Following a disastrous start, the game was – in a quite literal sense – rebuilt from the ground up and released as A Realm Reborn in August 2013, the 2.0 version of the game. Whatever content remains of the original Eorzea has been explicitly repurposed to fit this new world, as the playerbase has no means to access the old content, arguably for the better. Despite moving forward with the story of Hydaelyn and Zodiark, introducing its beginning through A Realm Reborn – and now wrapping up the fiery finale with Endwalker – Square Enix has uploaded the official cinematic trailer for Final Fantasy 14's original version of the game.
Under normal circumstances, one would not look too deeply into this decision, yet if the developers of Final Fantasy 14 have taught their audience anything, is that they make very deliberate choices concerning the manner with which they tell the story of their flagship MMO.
The trailer for Final Fantasy 14 depicts the future Warrior of Light, the game's protagonist, taking a pile of leves (the game's equivalent of repeatable quests) to his comrades who are seated at a table, and by looking at the leve card, his mind is flooded with a vision of him fighting the morbol – a staple monster in the franchise's bestiary – with a group of adventurers.
The more intriguing part of the trailer, and one that may have a connection to Endwalker's story, is that the vision morphs into the Battle of Silvertear Skies, an event that takes place 15 years before the start of A Realm Reborn. The Battle of Silvertear Skies' consequences served as a propelling point for much of the game's story pertaining the invasionary force of the Garlean Empire, one of Final Fantasy 14's primary antagonists.
After the fall of Ala Mhigo, the Garlean fleet was poised to conquer the remaining city-states of Eorzea under the command of the mighty vessel Agrius, yet as their airships flew across the Silvertear Lake, they were met with a host of dragons led by their father, the great wyrm Midgardsormr. With the dragons considering themselves above Eorzean politics, there was a mystery as to why Midgardsormr let loose his Dravanian Horde upon the Garlean invaders, losing his life in the process, and though that reason was eventually revealed over the course of the game's story, one final mystery remained: what, precisely, lay underneath Silvertear Lake, situated at the heart of the crystal-warped land of Mor Dhona.
A popular theory among the fanbase is that Hydaelyn herself resides below the lake, much like Zodiark has a real, physical presence of his own. The theory does have some merit, as Lake Silvertear is described in the lore as the "heart of the world" as early as the original 1.0 version of the game. Square Enix's decision to upload this trailer on the official channel for Final Fantasy 14 so close to Endwalker's release might precisely be because it wants to highlight this connection, possibly alluding to the players finally exploring what lies underneath in Endwalker.
Whatever the case may be, the developers of Final Fantasy 14 are not one to leave plot threads permanently unresolved and players might just get the answers they seek this December.