Final Fantasy XIV’s Tales from the Dawn series is a collection of short stories released following Endwalker that give players an insight into their favorite characters from the game’s story. Releasing throughout 2021 to 2023, a new Tales from the Dawn “encore” was just unveiled on Dec. 7, featuring characters voted on by players.
This voting took place as part of the FFXIV 10th Anniversary survey conducted in September 2023. In case you don’t remember, there were several questions in the survey related to characters from Endwalker, and the result of that survey is this new story. And lets just say, FFXIV fans are still very much obsessed with Emet-Selch.
It should have been expected - after all, this was the villain-turned-ally (frenemy if you will) who was modded into Stardew Valley for folks to romance. What’s more, this obsession started before Emet’s backstory reveal from the latest expansion.
As per the blog post: “This side story features characters selected by participants via the 10th Anniversary Survey conducted in September 2023. By popular demand, we return to the world unsundered to spend another few moments with Emet-Selch and other ancients in this special encore.”
Titled Days Gone By, Days Yet to Come, the story features more than just Emet as the post implied, letting us check in with Hythlodaeus, Mitron, Loghrif, Elidibus, Igeyorhm, Lahabrea, Hermes, and even Azem. Truely an Ascian/Ancient bonanza. But also, inevitably, a story that pulls on the heartstrings and brings back up to the surface memories of the tragic story of the world unsundered.
The second anniversary of Endwalker was today, and with this story, and the release of a new version of “Close in the Distance,” it’s clear Square Enix won’t rest until there’s not a dry eye in the FFXIV community.
