We knew that the collaboration between Final Fantasy XIV and the NieR franchise wasn’t over when a crossover event was announced for the mobile game NieR Reincarnation. However, we didn’t know the extent of it. FFXIV director and producer Naoki Yoshida guested on a recent livestream for NieR Reincarnation to showcase the collaboration and share details about the event’s content, which kicks off on Tuesday, May 10, 2022. And it’s looking to be a bit more extensive than we anticipated.
Not only are we getting stages and short stories related to FFXIV (Shadowbringers, in particular), but lead scenario writer Natsuko Ishikawa is also lending her storytelling chops for the collab. A new trailer for the NieR x FFXIV collab dropped and included gameplay footage. You can see scenarios based on the final stretch of the Amaurot dungeon from Shadowbringers. White Mage, Dragoon, and Dark Knight (named Phantasmal Exile, Phantasmal Weapon, and Phantasmal Prisoner, respectively) are featured as weapons/characters in Reincarnation.
But the big thing for us FFXIV sickos was the teaser at the end of the trailer, which included a snippet of Emet-Selch from the cutscene of him overlooking Lakeland early in the Shadowbringers MSQ.
Based on translations by Audrey “Aitaikomochi” Lamsam on Twitter, NieR producer Yosuke Saito said on stream that Ishikawa was given control of the story in the crossover content. We’re not sure if Emet-Selch is the focus of the crossover, but it would seem the lore around him will be part of it. Although not much else was revealed, it seems Ishikawa was able to include a lot of the FFXIV spirit in these weapon stories.
NieR Re[in]carnation x FFXIV collab drops May 10th, 2022 and will contain new jobs Dark Knight, Dragoon, and White Mage.
There will also be an Emet-Selch story written by Ishikawa ???? pic.twitter.com/c2G6UwNPKj
— ☆オードリーAudrey☆ (@aitaikimochi) May 6, 2022
In NieR Reincarnation, weapons serve as characters and collectibles. They are storytelling devices — extensions of the lore entries you see as weapon descriptions in the mainline NieR games. Each weapon in NieR Reincarnation presents a new branch of playable content with self-contained stories within the world of NieR. Perhaps in the same way we just straight up have 2B and 9S in the world of FFXIV, maybe we’ll see our boy Emet-Selch (with his big dumpy and his little snappy snap and limpy wave) simply exist in the world of NieR.
NieR Reincarnation has been available since February 2021 and is playable on Android and iOS devices. It’s a free-to-play gacha-style mobile RPG, so manage your expectations accordingly if you’re planning to jump into it for the FFXIV content. You can watch the full FFXIV crossover event trailer below.
