Final Fantasy 16 ending explained

Questions about Final Fantasy 16 Ending? We’ve got you covered. spoilers inside.

** Heavy spoilers beyond this point. You have been warned.

end Final Fantasy 16 It leaves many questions to be answered. Mainly because all of its subtleties are hidden away in the lore sections of the game and optional side missions. Most of them only become available once you’ve completed each one.

We’ll answer all your burning questions and explain what exactly was going on during the finale of Final Fantasy XVI.

What is the Ultima Plan?

Ultima is part of a race of deities who lost their home to the Blight. In order not to repeat the sins of the past, Ultima settled in Valisthia and began working on a scheme that would allow them to cast a powerful spell. The spell will cleanse the world of earthly desires and free will to create a heaven without the blight.

To achieve this, Ultima and his kind needed two things: massive amounts of ether (the lifeblood of all living things) to fuel the spell and a vessel powerful enough to cast it.

To obtain these amounts of ether, Ultima’s brothers who are part of humanity turned to Mother Crystals. Those mother crystals pump the ether out of the planet’s core to the surface and will store it once the time is right.

It will take more time to create a suitable ship. Because Ultima created humanity, knowing that one day those inferior beings would produce a vessel capable of casting the spell.

Ultima left mankind at that time to their own devices and over time they developed free will. Which at some point made them master magic and rebel against their god. This would later be known as the War of the Magi and led to the downfall of the people we now know as The Fallen.

Ultima’s plan finally begins to work when Clive awakens to his powers at the Phoenix Gate, not only being the second Eikon of Fire but able to absorb the power of other Eikons and use them as his own.

Since that day, Ultima has been in the background orchestrating the events that led to the destruction and liberation of their brethren who formed the Mother Crystals. They then fuse together into one and take control of Clive who through thousands of years of human evolution has become the perfect vessel, the Methos.

Explanation of mythos and logos

The game doesn’t do a good job of explaining these two terms outside of the science of active time, so here’s their abbreviation:

Mythos is the vessel Ultima needs to cast the “Raise” spell. Which would erase the record and create a new paradise devoid of any emotion or free will. This is also why the Mythos allowed the rampaging Clive in the seemingly form of Ifrit to kill his brother, to shatter him into an empty shell fueled only by revenge.

But Clive chose to adopt “logos” instead. The game describes Logos as free will, the spirit that makes humans human. Ultima cannot control what they cannot fathom, humanity’s stubborn and selfish pride that seems to be the cause of all the bad things that happen in Valisthia. Clive realized that all wars and conflicts are only part of what makes him human.

But in order for Clive to become a Methos, he didn’t need to capture the power of the other Echoes, but they did give him the power to eventually overcome Ultima and challenge fate itself.

Clive’s fate

After his victory on Ultima, Clive expended most if not all of his strength. And like many of the bearers he meets on his journey, he too is slowly turning to stone. Now that Ultima is also consumed, he has the power to set things right at the cost of his life.

He first attempts to revive Joshua, who dies before the final battle. And while his wounds seem to be healing and Clive remembers his time with his brother, it doesn’t seem to work. Throughout the game, Joshua and the other characters keep stating that the Phoenix does not have the power to revive people. So why will you succeed this time?

Clive then decides to right Ultima’s wrongs and put an end to the endless cycle of suffering created by the Mother Crystals and magic. So he destroys the final crystal and breaks the spell Ultima used to hide the sun and turn people into Akashic.

We last see him stranded looking up at the moonlit sky thinking about Jill, and as he dies, the red star Mitya dies too, signaling the end of Ultima and the legacy of the crystals.

Final Fantasy 16 ending explained

After getting the loans, we get a scene of two boys carrying firewood to their home. One is black and the other has blonde hair, just like Clive and Joshua. The eldest complains that he must make fire with flint and steel and wishes he had the magic to make it.

Show us that in the distant future, Cid and Clive’s dream has become a reality. People finally live without magic dependent on crystals and suffer bearers and masters. At the end, the camera zooms in on a book from which the children quote the phrase “Icon’s War,” a phrase used by researcher Vivian to describe most of the conflict in the game.

The title of the book is revealed to be “Final Fantasy”, and its cover contains the same logo we see in the hideout and was written by Joshua Rosefield. While debating whether this book was actually penned by Joshua or by someone using his name, we learn in a side question at the end that Joshua is a scholar with a passion for history and a love of writing. So it is not excluded that it was written by him.

But how did he survive? We are told over and over again that the Phoenix does not have the power to raise the dead. Ultima was preparing to cast a spell called “Raise” to create a new world, a spell that the Final Fantasy series usually associates with reviving fallen party members. And with Clive having the power of Ultima resurrecting Joshua, it doesn’t seem like he’s out of the realm of possibility.

The game leaves this ambiguous for a reason. Clive’s entire journey has been about getting revenge and making amends for his brother’s apparent death at Phoenix Gate. His brother’s resurrection brings the story full circle as the narration indicates at the beginning and end of the game.

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