If you told a Final Fantasy XIV player five years ago that the game would one day cross over with Neon Genesis Evangelion as a full multi-part alliance raid series developed alongside Khara, Inc., they probably would’ve assumed you were on something or just being extra hopeful. Despite that, here we are in 2026 and it’s happening. During the opening keynote for the Final Fantasy XIV Fan Festival 2026 in Anaheim, California, producer and director Naoki Yoshida dropped one of the most shocking collaboration announcements ever to people such as myself.
The crossover, officially being titled Evangelion: Ghosts of Desire, was revealed midway through the keynote after Yoshida had already unveiled the games next major expansion “Evercold”. This isn’t going to be like the Fall Guys or Yo-Kai Watch events where it’s a one time crossover with potential future reruns either as it’ll be a set of 24-player alliance raids built directly into the upcoming expansion. The coolest part, at least to me, is the fact that this is developed in an active partnership with Khara, the studio behind the Rebuild of Evangelion film series and the current owner of the entire Evangelion franchise.
Why This Collaboration Makes Sense
Firstly, we are already in a state for Final Fantasy XIV where we have collaborations with Fall Guys and NieR Automata, it’s not like Evangelion is really that far away from the NieR side of things. However, Yoshida has been very enthusiastically vocal during the fan festival about being a “Evangelion otaku”, seeming genuinely excited to experience this partnership come to life himself. Sometimes when it comes to these type of partnerships it goes beyond just what the community would see, but when you have people who are producers and directors on the game that really want something like this to happen, it just makes it all the more likely that it will actually come to the game, even if some strings need pulled.
The timing of this partnership also carries significant weight. October 2025 marked the 30th anniversary of Neon Genesis Evangelion, with Khara celebrating at the Yokohama Arena in February 2026. Usually when anniversaries come up for media such as anime we tend to see the owners behind those big names finding ways to celebrate, and while they could’ve just done a short film animation and called it a day, partnering with a game as long lasting as FFXIV just makes it feel so much more special. You can see the short film below for those curious of what it looked like!
One thing that personally makes this type of collaboration more special to me is the fact that when it comes to anime partnerships in gaming, we don’t always see the best treatment in the world. Typically if an anime isn’t coming to a media giant like Fortnite, it ends up thrown into as many mobile games as possible. Many of those mobile games end up shutting down without long lifespans, making these partnerships become lost to memory a lot more commonly then not. So seeing a anime behemoth like Evangelion come to XIV just feels perfect, like it will leave a good legacy instead of fading away.
What Do We Know About Ghosts of Desire?
Details are deliberately thin right now. The teaser shown at the Anaheim keynote featured Eva-01 prominently, which gave the room exactly the reaction you’d expect. Even viewers from home such as myself who expected just typical update announcements got hyped for this! Beyond that, Yoshida was very tight-lipped, acknowledging that he knows “expectations will be through the roof” and promising to do his best to match those expectations. The raid is being developed by Square Enix as usual, but it has creative supervision from the Evangelion producers over at Khara helping out to ensure the content stays authentic to the source material and fits the universe neatly.
The collaboration is not going to be a one and done however, as Alliance raids in FFXIV have always followed a three-part pattern spread across an expansion’s full patch cycle, meaning that Ghosts of Desire isn’t going to be something that comes out one day and is forgotten the next. Instead, it’ll be a fully sustained chapter-by-chapter crossover that plays out over the lifespan of Evercold. This will require significant commitment from both Square Enix and Khara, as if they start off on the wrong foot it could spoil the excitement people have towards future updates and alliance raids that are set in the Evangelion universe.
The reason previous collaborations like the NieR raids worked so well was because they weren’t just aesthetic placemats where you show up for glamour and leave. They told a story that felt meaningful not only within the FFXIV universe but also in the NieR universe, keeping the NieR magic alive while not deciding to just use the IP and create a new story out of thin air that retcons stuff.
What to Expect Next
Yoshida and the development team have been clear that Ghosts of Desire is just the beginning of what they’re willing to share. A lot of announcements during the Anaheim Fan Festival talked about extra reveals for new features during the next two Fan Festivals. Due to this, we could see new announcements or teasers for the partnership during the Berlin Fan Festival in late July OR during the Tokyo Fan Festival in October. The Tokyo Fan Festival is where I feel we could learn the most information, as Japan is (obviously) home to Evangelion, but only time will tell. If you’re looking to earn some free twitch badges during the Berlin and Tokyo fan festivals, check our article out about what you can earn for free and stay following this website for more updates on everything gaming!
