Final Fantasy 14 Concept Art Reveals Zero Was Designed To Look "Genderless"

thegamer.com:

Final Fantasy 14: Endwalker introduced a new character called Zero. She's a Voidsent, i.e. from the Thirteenth Shard, and she looks an awful lot like Vampire Hunter D, another badass in all-black with a cool hat. On the topic of her design, according to concept artist Ayumi Namae, she was asked to make Zero look androgynous.

This was revealed in an email interview with Gamer, as translated by Twitch streamer and Aitai Japan Inc CEO aitaikimochi. Namae worked closely with Square Enix to design Zero, and this involved giving her a masculine skeleton with a handsome face, and Namae says that she specifically angled her hat in such a way as to mystify her features.

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While she was designed to look genderless, drawing from androgynous models and actors, she uses the pronouns 'she' and 'her' in-game. As aitaikimochi said, "The interview doesn't explicitly talk about gender identity", meaning that it stops at a design level.

aitaikimochi also says that "They did [not] determine whether the character is a male or female yet, but they sent in the request that they wanted a character with an aesthetic that transcends gender", meaning that Zero's pronouns and identity came after her design.

Namae also stated in the interview that she was "happy to hear that many people did not know if the character was male or female", which was her goal when designing Zero's concept art. However, her work with Square Enix went beyond that initial design, as she was heavily involved in the 3D implementation to ensure that Zero translated as accurately as possible from 2D.

If you want to do some quests Zero, you'll need to head over to The Fell Court of Troia and speak to the Dark-Robed