A Tale of Two Beginnings

If you step into Eorzea today, your story starts on a rattling Chocobo carriage or a rocking ship, dozing off and dreaming of a floating light crystal and a godly voice speaking to you. You are a fresh face to the realm, and contrary to what the trailer of A Realm Reborn might suggest, you were never present at the catastrophic Battle of Carteneau.

But for a specific fraction of the player base, the game began in an entirely different way.

If a player survived the events of version 1.0 and imported their character into A Realm Reborn, they did not arrive by carriage or boat. Instead, the cinematic transition is seamless: these "Legacy" characters are canonically teleported directly into their starting city in a blinding beam of light, safely magicked away by Louisoix Leveilleur's final spell. Furthermore, key NPCs continuously remark that these Legacy characters feel "very familiar," even if their memories of the original heroes remain fuzzy due to the Calamity.

While the Legacy characters carry the physical Mark of the Twelve tattooed on their necks—a quiet testament to their survival—the overarching journey quickly unites both paths. Whether arriving by a blinding flash of ancient magic, or by the bumpy wheels of a Chocobo carriage, the destination remains the same: the adventurer's guild, a handful of Gil, and a realm waiting to be reborn.