Foreshadowing / Final Fantasy XIV

Final Fantasy XIV
Tropes: A to C | D to F (Foreshadowing) | G to I (Gameplay and Story Integration) | J to L | M to O | P to R | S to U | V to Z

A Realm Reborn:

• The lyrics to the main theme, Answers, supposedly contained hints about the main plot, though said plot was reworked for ARR, making the original intention lost. In the Binding Coils of Bahamut, you learn about Bahamut and his brood of Merycidian dragons, who despite his rampage, were Tragic Monsters who were killed, captured, tortured, and subjected to an And I Must Scream, making the melancholy, heartbroken song seem to apply to them as much as the suffering of the Calamity. As well, it sees use at the end of 2.5, when the player's companions have all pulled off a Heroic Sacrifice, Hydaelyn nowhere in sight to help save you, and a sense of despair and hopelessness as you head into Ishgard. With 6.0, the lyrics are once more picked up with an entirely new meaning, now implying the song is being sung by Venat/Hydealyn herself, looking at all that has happened as well as knowing what will happen and lamenting not having been able to stop the Final Days, with only the knowledge and hope pushing her forward that the Warrior of Light might yet save everything in the future if she can support them then.
• In the Level 30 Gladiator quest, "The Rematch," Aldis is arrested by the Brass Blades with them claiming that he's going to poison the Sultana. It's exactly what happens to Nanamo at the end of A Realm Reborn, though he's innocent.
• During the Black Mage storyline, you meet Kazagg Chah, Dozol Meloc, and Da Za. An Amalj'aa, Ixal, and Kobold respectively who showed that there are those among the beast tribes who are not primal worshipers and are actually friendly before the appearance of Beast Tribe quests.
• Yugiri takes a temporary leave at the end of the 2.2 quest chain to teach the Limsan underworld about Ninjutsu after learning from Thancred that an organization of "questionable" characters employs a similar fighting style. This foreshadowed both the Ninja job announcement at E3 and how they would extend from the Rogue class.
• Midgardsomr's statement that the Warrior of Light would not "find salvation" in Ishgard possibly serves as a reminder of a previous stinger that suggested Ascian influence within the nation.
• Yuyuhase, one of the recruited Crystal Braves, constantly talks about making money from your very first conversation with him. Thus, it shouldn't come as a big surprise that he is one of the Crystal Braves who is bought out by the Monetarists and betrays the Scions.
• In the same vein, when you try to recruit Landebert, he says word on the street is that the new organization has already been bought out by the Syndicate. He's right. Alphinaud says he knows and assures the player every coin is being accounted for and will not allow the organization to fall to corruption, but he doesn't take into account the fact Teledji Adeledji is paying off rogue members behind Alphinaud's back, or some shell companies from the Syndicate.
• Again, Ilberd points out the flaws in the Immortal Flames go all the way back to their hasty founding and lack of a pre-existing military cadre to form around, and the short timeframe and reckless recruiting enabling various double agents to find their way all the way to top of the Company. All of which applies just as well to the Crystal Braves, and even to Ilberd himself.
• During the mission line to unlock the Crystal Tower, you encounter Biggs, who is seeking special aethersand to run a special type of airship he and Wedge are designing. This is foreshadowing the Manacutter that is used partway through 3.0.
• The Doma side story both alludes to events in Stormblood and also the Au Ra race, which is revealed in the last cutsene of 2.0.
• After Nanamo is poisoned, her treacherous handmaiden tells Lolorito, the most obvious suspect for the mastermind of the plot now that Teledji is dead, that all his orders have been carried out. He reacts not with triumph, but rather a grimace and an annoyed grunt because his plans of rescuing the Scions and Nanamo from Teledji's schemes have gone terribly awry and he's been left holding the bag.

Heavensward:

• Early in the 3.0 storyline, Archbishop Thordan VII converses with the leader of the Heaven's Ward, his bodyguard of twelve elite knights. The camera pulls back and focuses on a round table... The final boss of the 3.0 story is Thordan and those same twelve knights, manifest as FFXIV's iteration of the Knights of the Round. We even see the leader transformed into an imposing figure in heavy armor. This is later compounded upon in The Vault, where players face off against three of the Heavens Ward, all of which transform into their primal form.
• The Niddhog eye that Estinien carries with him is red, yet when you first face Nidhogg, his eye is yellow. There is another dragon you meet that has a single yellow eye and a missing one. Hraesvelgr, who supplied Nidhogg with an eye even though he had promised Shiva he wouldn't do anything to harm the Ishgardians.
• In the same vein, Estinien also mentions that while he was able to draw Nidhogg's attention from Ishgard using his eye that was in his possession, Nidhogg recently was ignoring him, instead focusing on Ishgard itself. That is because his other eye was within Ishgard all along, within the corpse of Haldrath, the first Azure Dragoon.
• In the Sea of Clouds, there is the occasional weather event where the sky becomes violet and seemingly unnatural. And just outside of the invisible walls of the map, off to the north, you can make out what looks like an airship half buried in the clouds. 3.1 would release a new Raid called the Void Ark, taking place on the same ship from the weather event. Once you clear the raid, defeated its monsters, and seen its power core (the giant coffin containing the voidsent Shadow Queen) stolen by another, the Void Ark will continue to show up randomly, but it won't change the weather anymore.

Stormblood:

• Asahi's gambit to make life hell for the Warrior of Light and Doma while hiding behind diplomatic immunity? Elidibus used a similar ploy in the 2.x MSQ, and it turns out he suggested it to Asahi.
• Upon entering Heaven-on-High for the first time, keen-eyed players might notice that the Empyrean Aetherpool weapons have the same models as the High Allagan weapons. It's not a coincidence or a case of asset recycling - completing the first thirty levels of Heaven-on-High reveals that the tower is an Allagan creation.
• When you meet Shadowhunter a.k.a. Gaius in patch 4.4, he mentions the known Ascian leaders are Elidibus, Lahabrea, and Emet-Selch. You know of the first two, but even Alisae lampshades how the Scions don't have files on the latter one. Turns out this is the true identity of Solus zos Galvus, who first appears in this patch, and then goes on to become the Arc Villain of Shadowbringers.
• The Dotharl's belief in reincarnation is treated like little more than a local superstition at first, but is proven to be mostly correct in Shadowbringers with the reveal that all bearers of the Echo are reincarnated Ancients, and in Endwalker where one of the main antagonists is a reincarnated soul with a tendency towards insanity and genocide in each of his lives.

Shadowbringers:

• At the beginning of Shadowbringers, Biggs and Wedge discover the beacon the Crystal Exarch had sent, commenting that it looks like a counterfeit Garlond Ironworks product. It's not until you've completed the 5.0 story that the player finds out that the beacon was made by the Garlond Ironworks from the Bad Future.
• When first meeting with Alphinaud in Kholusia, he muses about the morality of allowing one person to be sacrificed save the lives of many; in this case, letting Kai-Shirr use Alphinaud's plan to get into Eulmore so he can reunite with his friends and family. This turns out to be a major thematic plot point when it's revealed that the Exarch's plan from the beginning was to sacrifice himself to save both Norvrandt and the Source and to return the Scions to their rightful world.
  Alphinaud: "We strive to bring swift salvation to this world, that countless lives may be saved — not least your own. Even if it came at the cost of one man, should I have forged on regardless...?"
• Emet-Selch can be talked to throughout the Shadowbringers story at certain points, and you can ask him questions about the Ascians. During one conversation while talking about Ascian society, he says that you wouldn't remember it anyway. You can ask him what does he mean by you wouldn't remember, but he brushes you off. It turns out that you are the reincarnation of one of the 14 leading Ascians, and Emet-Selch's friend.
• Throughout Shadowbringers, in both the Main Scenario and in side quests, you will occasionally encounter people, such as Seto the Amaro or an elderly Viis in Fanow, who remark that the Warrior of Light feels familiar to them. The thing such individuals tend to have in common is they are people who knew or met Ardbert and the Warriors of Darkness, foreshadowing that Ardbert is the Warrior of Light's incarnation on the First.
• The Dancer questline explores the true role of the Troupe Falsiam and their battle against the Totentanz, a strange malady of Hannish legend that consumes those it afflicts with deep despair, leading them to lose their wills to live, turn on others, or be Driven to Suicide. While not explicitly confirmed, this greatly resembles the effects of dynamis during the Final Days in Endwalker.
• During the Shadowbringers Role quests, the Warrior of Light experiences multiple Echo flashbacks to the pasts of the First's Warriors of Light (who became the Warriors of Darkness within the Source). During some of the flashbacks, there is an Elezen woman named Cylva who was not part of the band that went to the Source to disrupt it. At the bar in the Crystarium, there is an Elezen bar maiden named Cyella. After you have completed all 4 Role questlines, you unlock a final questline to wrap them all up that reveals that Cyella was once Cylva, part of Ardbert's band a century ago, and an Ascian Plant from the Thirteenth, AKA "The Void".
• During the same questline, you only fight against 4 of the Cardinal Virtues, who are the corpses of the previous Warriors of Darkness-turned-sin eaters, with only Ardbert's not a part of them. Turns out, that's because his body is currently being used by Elidibus, as revealed in the stinger for 5.1, before his identity is relieved in full in 5.2.
• In the 5.2 storyline of NieR: Automata's YoRHa: Dark Apocalypse, the key 2P spoke of that Anogg and Konogg wants to power up in order to gain access to weaponry contains a song, "Crumbling Lies - Front Orchestration Roll". It is a remix of "Crumbling Lies - Front", a song that first plays in NieR Automata during Route C where 2B and 9S escape the infected Bunker in a flight unit. The 5.3 Nier Raid takes place at the ruins of said Bunker.
  • Anogg's clothing is also an allusion, as it Shares the same colors as 2P, referencing how she is also a product of the egg.
• Much ado was made by the development team about how the new character Gaia from the Eden raid series used a large two-handed hammer, which is a weapon type that is not used by any Jobs in the game (a small number of Warrior "axes" notwithstanding), especially when she uses it to smash the players and Ryne (mostly) free of Light-aspected Ice in the final battle of Eden 8. The foreshadowing? All the way back in A Realm Reborn, when Lahabrea declares that "the hammer of Darkness needs be brought to bear upon the shield of Light". The big reveal of the Eden series is that Gaia is indeed an Ascian - but one who has lost her memories.

Endwalker:

• The Sage questline, taking place in levels 70 - 80 and thus completable before the player journeys to Sharlayan, concludes with the main supporting character, effectively a Sharlayan police officer, remark that while she doesn't doubt the good intentions of the Forum she's confident they knew more about the criminal she and you have been chasing than they told her and that things would have been easier if they had been more open. This is, in a nutshell, the attitude the Scions end up having towards the Forum when you visit Sharlayan proper.
• While showing the Warrior around Sharlayan, Alisaie recounts a story when she and Alphinaud went out to wait for Fourchenault to come home at a bridge along the way. Bored, she stuck her head over the side and at that moment, a very angry Fourchenault arrived and rebuked her for putting herself in danger. Take a wild guess what's the root of Fourchenault's current animosity towards his children.
• When first arriving at the Great Work in Thavnair, young Varshahn is caught staring for a moment at the prominent lance on Estenien's back and Estenien towards him. Considering that he is Vrtra of the First Brood, it's of little wonder that he probably instantly recognized his elder brother's blood on it and thus felt cautious of the man wielding said weapon. Furthermore, Estenien would have sensed Vrtra's eye in such a body as well.
• Later in Thavnair, the concept of "Akasha" is mentioned, a theoretical concept of emotional energy that might explain the color changing of the Elpis flower. Later on, it is revealed that Akasha is real, and it's really called Dynamis, not to mention it is the source of Limit Break attacks
• There is a segment of the Elpis MSQ that has you dragging Emet-Selch around a watery area called Lethe, after the river in Classical Mythology that erased a soul's memories before they passed to the underworld. Later on, Emet-Selch and Hythlodaeus both have their memories of the past few days you'd known them erased.
• Two moments with Meteion allude to the source of the Final Days. First, Meteion mentions that candy apples are her favorite food and needs to be reminded she can't eat — candy apples are Hermes's favorite food, and she thinks they're her own because she's reacting to his emotions. Second, when Hermes is distraught at the news Emet-Selch brought, he sends Meteion away so his negative emotions won't distress her and asks the Warrior of Light to look after her for the moment. That Meteion internalizes the emotions of others and has no experience dealing with grief or despair are key factors in her becoming the Endsinger, as the Meteia took on the despair of hundreds of dying worlds and had no way to deal with such emotions other than embracing them and acting out a nihilistic wave of destruction. When this is made clear, Hermes does nothing to help Meteion because she's validating his own nihilism and it falls to the Warrior of Light to actually get through to her in the end.
  • Later on, her Dialogue regarding failed worlds returned in the final dungeon, as Each area in the dungeon is a specific dead world she brought up while recording her findings.
• The introductory narration to each zone from Emet-Selch sometimes drop hints that he's actually watching the Warrior of Light in real time on their journey. Thavniar being most notable when he abruptly stops in the middle of his monologue as the Warrior of Light, Thancred, and Urianger drop like flies to teleporation sickness. This culminates in the introduction to Ultima Thule when he's joined in his narration by Hythlodaeus, who'd only just recently truly died with Zodiark. The payoff comes when the Warrior of Light uses Azem's incantation power-boosted by Hydaelyn's power to resurrect them both to aid them against Meteion.