Final Fantasy 14 director debunks popular Dawntrail job fan theory

Final Fantasy 14 fans hoped that a recent Dawntrail trailer hinted at future job content, but director Naoki Yoshida debunked the theory in a recent interview with Dexerto.

The upcoming Dawntrail expansion for Final Fantasy 14 marks the start of a fresh storyline for the series. Now that the long-running plotline involving the Ascians told from A Realm Reborn to Endwalker is over, the developers can start a whole new epic tale.

The “Job Actions” trailer for Dawntrail on the official Final Fantasy XIV YouTube channel opened with the Warrior of Light opening a box containing stones with the job icons on them. Fans noticed that there were nine conspicuous empty slots, leading to theories that these were meant for planned jobs that would appear in future expansions.

Dexerto recently interviewed Final Fantasy 14 director Naoki Yoshida at a hands-on preview event for Dawntrail. We asked about the nine job stones fan theory and Yoshida (via a translator) initially joked that it was a mistake, before debunking the theory.

“Oh yeah, you’re talking about the opening of the Job Action trailer? So when it came to the time of checking off when I had to check the trailer, the schedule was quite tough and that was the one point I noticed. I was like ‘Why are there those nine slots there?'”

“But if I said “We need to cut them out” that would make the shape of the box weird. So, I thought “Okay, fine, let’s just go and release it” but now that I’ve received this question, I think “Hmm, we really should have adjusted it back then.”

“So, we’ll put the joke to one side. But when it comes to the question of if there is any meaning behind that, there isn’t really.”

“But whenever it comes to an expansion release, we know that players are really excited about the new jobs, and so from all of us on the Final Fantasy 14 team, we want to implement as many jobs as we can. And so I think what you could see in the trailer is sort of represented those feelings that we have.”

Final Fantasy 14 adds new jobs with each expansion and it wouldn’t be surprising to see nine or more added throughout the storyline that’s starting in Dawntrail. However, it doesn’t seem like the specifics of those jobs are planned out yet, especially as the team is still working on the Beastmaster, which is launching in one of Dawntrail’s upcoming patches.