10 Questions We Have After FFXIV's Evercold Trailer

The long patch cycle of Final Fantasy 14 is almost over for Dawntrail, meaning you now get to look forward to the newly revealed Evercold expansion, which is currently set to be released in January 2027. Since Square Enix has just revealed Evercold for the first time, the primary content for it is limited to the presentation at FanFest and the teaser trailer.

You got a lot of technical information and details about aspects of Evercold in the FanFest presentation, such as changes being made to Jobs and the Evangelion raid. However, information about the lore is scarce so far, which is generally the case for new expansions, as you should be learning the story from playing the game, but that doesn't mean you can't ask questions about what you'll be heading into based on the trailer.

10 Rejoining the Reflections

Weren't the Ascians Vilified for Wanting This?

There's some reasoning behind rejoining the Reflections related to Hydaelyn no longer being present to keep them from smashing back into each other, allegedly. However, if your main task as the Warrior of Light is now to make the Source whole again, the way it was before the Final Days, then it feels rather hypocritical.

The Ascians, when they were led by Lahabrea, Emet-Selch, and Elidibus, acted with the end goal of rejoining the Reflections, and they were the main villains for a decade. Now, you get to start working on the exact same task, but the only difference is you care about not causing mass deaths in the process. It's a bit of a jarring shift.

9 Frozen Tree

Is This a Crystal Tower Equivalent?

The trailer gives the frozen tree a few nice shots, and it's difficult to look at it and not see the resemblance to the Crystal Tower. If it's meant to be the equivalent of the Crystal Tower for this shard, then that would make a lot of sense regarding its purpose. After all, the Crystal Tower played a key role in traveling between reflections before.

In Shadowbringers, G'raha used the power contained in the Crystal Tower to pull the Warrior of Light— and the other Scions, accidentally— to the First. He understands the mechanics of how it works, so it could be possible for him to use the Crystal Tower and its equivalents on other shards to open paths for you and others to travel between, similar to the way it was possible with Y'shtola figuring out the path to the Void.

8 Hooded Woman

Who Is She?

A character wearing a hood in a trailer is rarely unimportant in the actual content the trailer is showing. If that pattern holds, then the woman telling the story of the WoL's arrival on their shard will be an important NPC you'll be working with in Evercold. Because of this pattern, there are already a few theories about who she might be.

One theory is that she's the woman seen praying in the trailer, but older. While this is a solid guess, there's also a resemblance between the hooded woman and Master Matoya, leading to speculation that she's a shard of Y'shtola, who takes after Matoya in many ways, or Master Matoya herself.

7 Praying Woman

Could She Be the Shiva of This World?

You can't deny the parallels between what you see in Evercold and Heavensward. You go to a wintry location with Alphinaud and Estinien to save the people from an eternal winter. However, the circumstances behind this world being frosted over are likely quite different from Ishgard's draconic war and history, meaning the roles of NPCs like the praying woman will be different from those of Heavensward's important characters.

In Ishgard's history, Shiva fell in love with a dragon and brokered peace between man and dragons by having him eat her so they'd always be together, because she knew her life would end long before Hraesvelgr's. Seeing the praying woman in the trailer, and then her vanishing as another character is in the area definitely gives off the vibe that she could've performed a sacrifice for the sake of peace like Shiva.

6 Winterers

Did They Name Themselves From This Shard?

Evercold is going to take you to the Fourth, which is in a state of eternal frost. Interestingly, you hear about the Winterers for the first time in the patches leading up to 8.0, primarily from Halmarut as she's speaking with Calyx about the inevitable death of the world they're on and that he should say his goodbyes to anybody important before they leave.

At the time, Winterer was speculated to mean that the remaining Ascians have just decided to withdraw and live as they pleased without the instructions of the Unsundered. However, Evercold gives some new possibilities as to what the term might mean, considering you could call everybody on the Fourth a Winterer given their circumstances.

5 Warrior of Light and Zero

Why Did They Switch Outfits?

This could just be a fun Easter Egg, or a way to throw you off when you first watch the trailer because it looks like Zero will be there, and then it's just Meteor in her outfit. At the same time, it's interesting that, at the end of Zero's story, she wears a Paladin outfit that's reminiscent of the one that Meteor wears in the Endwalker trailer, meaning they've effectively switched roles.

If you look at patterns in previous expansion trailers, you'll notice that Meteor usually wears an outfit related to a new job, or one that originated from a class that was prominent in inspiration for that expansion, such as the Final Fantasy 4 inspirations in Endwalker. Assuming that's the case for Reaper appearing in this trailer, it could hint at more being drawn from FF11, where Dark Knight is more similar to FF14's Reaper job, or Final Fantasy Type-0, which has Sice as a Reaper-esque class.

4 Natural Rejoinings

Was Hydaelyn Keeping the Shards Separated?

This is information that you don't have a way to confirm yet, as the source of it is Halmarut. While Ascians tend to understand more than others and almost always tell the truth, although not always the whole truth, it raises quite a few questions about past Ascians if Halmarut is right about Hydaelyn having kept the shards from rejoining on their own.

If Hydaelyn was the biggest obstacle to the shards naturally rejoining on their own, then it would've made more sense for the Unsundered to kill her instead of orchestrating rejoinings through Calamities. It likely would've been a lot easier for them, too, which makes this information from Halmarut strange, unless she didn't have the full picture of the natural rejoinings and Hydaelyn's role in them.

3 Norse Inspiration

How Much Norse Mythology Is Being Pulled From?

Some of the first speculations about Evercold revolved around the Norse mythology elements that are present in the trailer. The biggest driver of these speculations is the frozen tree, which many are speculating is the equivalent of Yggdrasil. If that's the case, then it's likely that the Fourth will have a fair amount of Norse inspiration throughout its design.

It's especially interesting that the recent normal raid series, The Arcadion, feels a bit inspired by Norse mythology as well, which could have been a hint about Evercold's nature. In particular, the final boss' nature and how the cure for psychonekrosis is acquired feel like they came from Norse mythology as well, even if not directly.

2 Heavensward

Is the Fourth Connected to Dragons?

It's possible for dragons to travel between shards, and it's seen in the 6.0 patch series. Considering the parallels between Evercold and Heavensward from the first trailer alone, it might not be wild to speculate that dragons might play a role in your adventures on the Fourth.

Perhaps the biggest indicator that this could be the case is Estinien's presence on the Fourth along with Alphinaud, both of whom were your main companions in Heavensward. If dragons are involved in any way, Estinien is definitely the person you want working with you, as he's basically the leading expert on dragons outside of dragons themselves.

1 "They"

What Are the Creatures that Made Everybody Flee?

According to the trailer's narrator, the people of the Fourth had to flee to the skies because "they" made them. As she says this, you see beasts appearing on the screen that seem to be made of stone and greatly resemble the Guardians in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. However, she doesn't give any indication about their origin or what they even are.

Depending on how many FF games you've played, you might notice that the creatures with the big spikes in their chest could be connected to the Weapons from FF7, which all had a similar spike in their chest. If that's the case, it could also mean that they were artificial, and that what happened on the Fourth wasn't just the brutality of nature.

There's a lot of time left before the actual release of Evercold, but you can expect to see more information about it leading up to that release. While most of these questions will likely go unanswered until you get the chance to jump into the expansion, it's fun to speculate on what the trailer might be telling you about Final Fantasy 14: Evercold.