A familiar face may return in Evercold
Square Enix released patch 7.56 this week for Final Fantasy 14, marking the last update the MMO will receive before the release of the Evercold expansion in January. With all of Dawntrail‘s loose threads already wrapped up, patch 7.56 paves the way for the game’s next chapter. That was all to be expected, but what fans didn’t expect was to see a character that had been dead for years.
Early in patch 7.56, which is called Trail to the Heavens, the Warrior of Light must teleport to the Fourth, a parallel world. The new ice-covered environment will serve as the main setting for Evercold, and this is the first time players have gone there. But during the teleportation process, there are flashes on the screen briefly showing a figure that looks exactly like Ysayle Dangoulain. That’s a shock considering she tragically died near the end of the 2015 Heavensward expansion. At first, this was thought to be a flashback, but closer inspection reveals that Ysayle is wearing an entirely new outfit. That means this is a new asset in the game, signaling she may have a large part to play in Evercold. But is it even really Ysayle? That’s the question fans are asking.
Final Fantasy 14 Evercold’s Ysayle lookalike theories
There is good news and bad news for those hoping this signals Ysayle’s return. The bad news is that the community is in agreement that this is probably not the actual Ysayle who died in Heavensward. Even the Warrior of Light said they “had a vision of a woman who looked like Ysayle.” The key distinction is that it is not actually her. The good news is that she still might be connected. Final Fantasy 14 has established in its lore that the world has been shattered into various shards; these are parallel worlds like the Fourth. The souls of individuals were also split across those shards. For example, Ardbert in Shadowbringers and the Warrior of Light are shards of the same soul. Whoever the mysterious woman is on the Fourth, she is likely a shard of Ysayle.
This would further strengthen the comparisons between Evercold and Heavensward. It doesn’t seem to be a coincidence that the Warrior of Light’s companions during Trail to the Heavens are Alphinaud and Estinien, two major characters from Heavensward who both interacted with Ysayle. This also opens up the possibility that other characters will return in similar ways, though I don’t think the community could really take seeing a version of Haurchefant alive and well.