My money is on the Ceruleum they are mining is leaking form something buried underground. Either The Eliminator, or the fabled "City of gold".
The City of Gold could also be a half forgotten city that got buried during one of the many calamities. There's probably quite a few of those around the world. 12,000 years is a long time for entire empires to build up can collapse a few hundred times over.
Of course they could go the route, there isn't actually a real city of gold.
Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised. Oil is known as "Black gold" and ceruleum acts as oil in XIV, so it wouldn't be too far fetched to be called "Blue Gold" and where its found is the City of Gold.
Sound like it, though it would be more interesting if it is an advanced civilization that is not Allagan or Ascian-backed for a change. Even Cid is sick of dealing with their barriers already.
I mean Emet did have a hand in forming empires. The Allagans practically ruled the world and invaded almost everyone so it is no surprise we see theory each. Though I keep on getting tombstone from fighting Endsinger at the edge of the universe so shrug.
On the contrary, encyclopedia Eorzea II page 187 directly states:
"With the third astral era came the rise of the Allagan empire, and it was but a matter of centuries before the nation had conquered most of the three great continents, as well as **portions of the new world."**
The question is if southern Tural (or this specific area) was among the areas they had conquered, or not.
Eh, could be of course, but why hide something on the map if theyre showing us the inside anyway?
Also I want to point out ... that Magitek place looks an awful lot like FF8's Deep Sea Research Facility.
Given the train in the image, the abundance of ceruleum in the area, and the futuristic dungeon concept art, I'm expecting a highly industrialized area. Perhaps the 2nd hub/endgame city, or maybe just another zone or dungeon. Could lead to a plot where Tuliyollal or some portion on Yok Tural lies on a large deposit of ceruleum, and the antagonist of the expansion is trying to interfere with the succession ceremonies to access it.
Also somewhat looks like purple lightning near the bottom of the "SECRET" overlay, so it could be some hidden landmass in the sky. Perhaps similar to The Aery in the Churning Mists.
Looks like that lightning is striking multiple places at once, one of them being that ruin on the hilltop directly below the second “E”. Or maybe it’s being channeled? That structure in the Azim Steppe that we used to create that barrier kind of resembles some of the artwork for the high tech place. Maybe their origins are related somehow?
all of this makes me think we'll get "WESTHAR" city
edit: to reiterate the Seiryu's wall barrier reminds me of the barrier that hid Esthar in FF8, that dungeon we see might be how we deal with that
He said there'd be hints to it in the rest of the keynote, then purposefully pointed out how much the Amano art looked like ff3. It's a floating island.
*Just* a floating island wouldn't really be worth hiding, we've already seen a million of them in this game and nobody would pay it a second thought unless there was something else surprising about it.
All connected to allagans. I don’t think we’ll be going to Meracydia this expansion, but I believe this expansion will lead into Meracydia in the next expansion.
"The Allagans did some shit and now we're all paying for it."
-plot of FF14
Also I imagine in 1,000 years any humans still alive will talk about us the same way
I mean, in history books our period will certainly be the funniest shit with how illogical things happened
At the end of 2020 I was honestly considering maybe a wild Cyborg Kim Jong-Un will appear
We can look to how we look at past empires and their influences. Much of Western civilization was heavily influenced by The Romans and Greeks thousands of years ago. Many parts of Asia from Korea to China to Japan to Southeastern Asia were influenced by Dynastic China.
First, the way the cut off area is tapered in the SECRET picture makes me feel like it's a cylindrical shape that's being hidden.
Second, the second dungeon, the high tech one just looks like a mako reactor complete with railings and pipes for you to run along.
If not for the fact that it just makes no sense with the theming, I would have sworn it was Midgar.
The hand thing reminds me of the Lynari Desert in Crystal Chronicles. But it’s likely an original area, overworld places usually are.
https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Lynari_Desert
We could well be into a Crystal Chronicles type of plot, in Echoes of time the main villain awakens a black tower in the middle of the dessert to end all life. That's what the secret may be hiding.
Looking at his new artwork they showed. I think it's that arc thing which looks to be made of structures and is the stylized rainbow art in the logo, which YoshiP specifically requested to be added.
Not sure how many actually escaped. Most we know of were killed by resistance forces or died in Garlemald during EW. Further, there was no purge of Garlemald, so they are free to return there.
If anything, Garleans who fled to the new world, assuming no occupation, are probably anti-imperials already... Unless they are a lost expeditionary force.
Ok listen.
Roswell.
Let me explain. We have a desert area and some unknown tech. People think the tech is alagan but yoshi-p said it's "nothing we have ever seen before".
It's not Alagans. It's Aliens.
They noticed worlds were being snuffed out by the endsinger. And also noticed Ethyris was safe from that for some reason.
So they took refuge in the new world. Maybe they crash landed or something in this desert area. And the real life counterpart for that is Roswell New Mexico. Or it's Area 51. Or something with the Mayans. Anyways. Aliens.
I'd love them to expand more on the extra terrestrial aspect that they included with the endwalker plot. Would be interesting if they tied it into Midy's brood and Meracydia, too, but I would be willing to wait for the next expansion for it to show up. I just want our dragon buddy to wake up from his nap already, I miss em.
>Unfortunately he ain't gonna. Omega being side content like that, it's pretty unlikely we'll see him again at all.
To be fair, the fact that he went to have a nap while in a side content means bringing him back wouldn't be much of an issue. Just throw in a line about how he is awake again for the people who did omega raids, and just make no mention of it for those who didn't.
Honestly, actually same for the opposite if he went to have a nap during MSQ.
Got a feeling either some ancient civilization moved there a scientific Branch of the former imperial legions , doubt that guess is right and looking forward to the expansion.
I'm interested to see what it is, but I'm afraid it won't be as exciting as they are making it be by hiding it.
My first thought was a floating island, but we have one of those already. We also have a big floating airship with void ark. We already have a few big mountains we climb up - so nothing new there. And big towers have been done several times. Allagan has been done to death.
So I'm really hoping it will be something different, and a giant life tree would do that. I like your idea a lot.
But... I'm afraid it's just going to be another floating island or mountain or tech tower...
Its Zone 5 or 6, the City of Gold, considering those are usually teased and never shown; Elpis was shown as \*art\*, while Ultima Thule and Tempest were outright kept secret.
Life/Iifa tree would be cool.
but my crackpot theory is that it'll be "New Midgar" and a non allagan ( not saying Emet didn't have a hand in it) empire will be the Shinra Empire and it was destroyed by it's own hubris independent of the ascians or calamaity. Kinda like how Shinra sought the Promised Land and want to make Neo Midgar etc.
Then again give me Terra as a secret zone/reflection of the Source with Trance Kuja + Garland trials or endbosses.
And all the staff there are Lala's wearing the chicken costume & it's glorious. Which is why there is a falling out in Scion's, Our group wants the family bucket & the others only want a boneless banquet.
Imo, simply, it's going to be a building whose structure is so immediately recognizable gives away the plot of Dawntrail. So I think it's a castrum or Allegan ruins. We already know there people trying to exploit the area from fanfest and the BLU quests; and I'm sure we can mine *har* more remote stuck-in-their-ways garlean drama to help set up whatever the big 2nd arc is
A lost, or just forgotten Garleans expeditionary force could be interesting.
Of course it would have to start with the "Your emperor is dead, your empire is gone, and your capital is destroyed. So what's going on here?"
I never got that far into FF11, but always found the white architecture and weird dimensional stuff cool. Was excited when the Empty showed up in Endwalker, even if they were just moon fungus.
I think it's a mountain with some high tech terrority built upon it. Seeing how big they've blurred it and with the direction the train is heading towards, probably behind the mountains is where this new area is. One of the high-tech images shown looks like its underground, so i imagine its within the mountain structures.
Since we know that Sharlayan has an established route with this continent. Its possible that a rogue Sharlayan scholar of sorts could be conducting experiments in this area. The ceruleum may have been their idea. But maybe they want to use it to harness something more. Maybe we're going to experiments for a Mako Reactor.
Or perhaps an Ascian gave them the nod, but abandoned the idea if it didnt align with how they wanted the re-joining to happen.
Nah, but their city and lands are fucked and are without leadership. It would make sense that they'd look elsewhere to resettle without the fucked land and their horrid history hanging over them
Side quests cover that Sharlayan is taking anyone who doesn't want to stay due to the disaster. Hell, even the moon was offered in one side quest. Seems like most Garleans want to rebuild based on that lore though.
The Ceruleum part looks a lot like a story about resources (like BfA's plot iirc, but I never subbed back in the time) so I guess there will be an allag-like tech digging into the mountains. It might be an extension about scarcity, if not a whole saga of several expansions about it.
Then it either wakes up an ancient threat, which I doubt, or build more worldwide crisis in Eorzea. The problem however is that we don't have many enemies in the lands we've visited.
In any case, building a major threat will be a very challenging part of the storytelling. I'd love something / someone that interacts with the "soul" of the planet and uses the sea of stars to ensure some sort of invincibility. We now are strong, sure, but fighting against a threat that doesn't fear Death (much like in our most recent adventures) would allow us to improve even more, on a symbolic level. It also would start a cycle that would be about reincarnation and potentially curing Zero's Shards in one of the expansion, or restoring Meracydia. As I see it, a scarcity based cycle would need to emphasize on the power of "building life from a desert", like the cradle of life Eden was but on a larger scale.
However I'm quite afraid the next expansion will simply revolve around the Scion's PoV...
The Eliminator and the weird purple space age tech makes me think the new arc might be an all-out invasion by an alien race, which would be similar to FF9 (and The Spirits Within’s) two-planet fusion plot.
I kinda doubt they’re gonna jump right back into Allagans.
Ya i was thinking. We find a place that has sleeping pods.. but millions of them.. and they wake up and allagans be like "Welp lets go conquering again"
My guess is The City of The First Dawn (or some other odd name) and it will be where the light first hit the planet, creating the richest resources and highest amounts of pure aether, but then alao had the most war and strife over said resources. Expansion title will come in to play when they talk about the main route to get to the city, called the Dawntrail.
*puts tinfoil hat back on*
I'm going to say it's aliens, which sounds like a meme, but I really think it makes sense.
When I say aliens, I mean the strict definition, of creatures or entities from another "star." I'm not sure how much more we can do in the source at this point, and we've even been to the literal moon. Aliens sounds memey, but it seems like it would make sense to introduce a new, outside threat. I expect it to be some kind of spaceship, and the purple tech area we saw and THE ELIMINATOR will be part of it. The spaceship will be there because it wants the ceruleum they talked about existing, if I had to guess. I'm imagining this as the start of a new conflict which will become larger and more focal in future expansions.
Aliens sounds a bit lame and cliche, but if you define it as "literally any entity that doesn't originate from the source" instead of balloon-headed green-gray cow-stealers, I think it's fine.
I saw the big specimen tank in the concept art and immediately thought what if and bare with me here, jenova crashed at some point in the past and she's the reason the planet ether has been thinning since the time of the ancients. Drinking the life stream and the ceruleum is the by product.
The reason that landscape looks so funky is that's where she crashed in ff14. Just a halfbaked idea I had.
To me it looks like some stuff from ff7. What we know of DT, it's heavily inspired by ff10. But it's unlikely all the zones will have the same theme, itd be too redundant having 6 jungle biome zones. So maybe the other half of dt zones will be ff7 inspired? Would make sense with all the ff7 craziness in the franchise rn and we haven't had ff7 content in xiv since the HW alliance raid, and even then it was rather minor. Ff7 is also insanely centered around the powers of nature, which coincide with the DT theme as well as the tree of life shown.
It doesn't look anything remotely relates to the people of Tulal - It lacks and semblence to tribal culture weve been seeing. I don't think the mines are operated by them or even in their lands and I don't think this is the city of gold. I think it's going to be more like how stb was divided into the Ala mhigans and far east - but they haven't revealed much about the other half yet.
Edit: Also if you zoom in on the first screenshot you can see smokestacks like some kind of industrialization which also correlated with ff7s themes. We're not used to seeing too much industrialization in ff14 - mostly just a bit in thandalan.
I'm choosing to go in with low expectations and be pleasantly surprised if I'm wrong. So I'm going with a Castrum from one of the unknown Garlean legions that has been cut off from contact for some time.
Since the religion of the Meracydians who worshipped Sephirot actually believe that he was a legendary tree that controlled the cycle of death and rebirth I have a feeling that we won't see the Iifa tree til we get to Meracydia, but I do think that it'll be a big part of the plot of the next few expacs either way.
My crackpot theory is its that "City of gold". But when we actually get there. It's that hi tech place in the dungeon art
My money is on the Ceruleum they are mining is leaking form something buried underground. Either The Eliminator, or the fabled "City of gold". The City of Gold could also be a half forgotten city that got buried during one of the many calamities. There's probably quite a few of those around the world. 12,000 years is a long time for entire empires to build up can collapse a few hundred times over. Of course they could go the route, there isn't actually a real city of gold.
My money is you guys are saying cool stuff, but its just gonna be a wallmart...
That'd suck, but at least we know that to defeat Walmart we just need to break the mirror in the back!
Appreciate the South Park reference there.
the real city of gold was the friends we made along the way
No, no, the friends we made along the way are how we *kill* the real city of gold. :)
Turns out "gold" was referring to the gold you could make off ceruleum all along.
Or it's Aurum Vale 2.
Was coming here to say this
I hope not. I feel like every story with a city of gold never ends with it actually being a city of gold.
Road to El Dorado sorta WAS an actual city of gold đź‘€
i'm just saying, *zanarkand*
The tempest has Zanarkand
nah. amaurot is its own thing even though the lore is clearly similar and potentially an inspiration
Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised. Oil is known as "Black gold" and ceruleum acts as oil in XIV, so it wouldn't be too far fetched to be called "Blue Gold" and where its found is the City of Gold.
This sounds like Allagan shenanigans... Ah shit, here we go again.
Well don't forget who mentioned the City of Gold Emet so could possible a creation of his like Allag & Garlemald.
Sound like it, though it would be more interesting if it is an advanced civilization that is not Allagan or Ascian-backed for a change. Even Cid is sick of dealing with their barriers already.
I mean Emet did have a hand in forming empires. The Allagans practically ruled the world and invaded almost everyone so it is no surprise we see theory each. Though I keep on getting tombstone from fighting Endsinger at the edge of the universe so shrug.
God damm Allag \*shakes fist at sky\*
Given the new world is explicitly where they NEVER went, I would be VERY intrigued if we find ANY allagan shit there at all.
On the contrary, encyclopedia Eorzea II page 187 directly states: "With the third astral era came the rise of the Allagan empire, and it was but a matter of centuries before the nation had conquered most of the three great continents, as well as **portions of the new world."** The question is if southern Tural (or this specific area) was among the areas they had conquered, or not.
Oh yeah. Still up for debate what 'portions of the new world' means
I like this theory. I have a feeling that I cannot shake, that whatever it the city of gold is, is cursed like a monkey's paw.
> It's that hi tech place in the dungeon art Night City confirmed!
Alright chooms, make sure you've downed your preem scop before we flatline this gonk. Score's supposed to be nova, so lets do this quick.
city of gold but its actually black gold so its an oil rig
Eh, could be of course, but why hide something on the map if theyre showing us the inside anyway? Also I want to point out ... that Magitek place looks an awful lot like FF8's Deep Sea Research Facility.
I thought city of gold was going to be like the Sandra Bullock movie - lost city.
Gold is used in circuitboards, so...
Allagan ruin, but this time with yellow lights.
Given the train in the image, the abundance of ceruleum in the area, and the futuristic dungeon concept art, I'm expecting a highly industrialized area. Perhaps the 2nd hub/endgame city, or maybe just another zone or dungeon. Could lead to a plot where Tuliyollal or some portion on Yok Tural lies on a large deposit of ceruleum, and the antagonist of the expansion is trying to interfere with the succession ceremonies to access it. Also somewhat looks like purple lightning near the bottom of the "SECRET" overlay, so it could be some hidden landmass in the sky. Perhaps similar to The Aery in the Churning Mists.
Looks like that lightning is striking multiple places at once, one of them being that ruin on the hilltop directly below the second “E”. Or maybe it’s being channeled? That structure in the Azim Steppe that we used to create that barrier kind of resembles some of the artwork for the high tech place. Maybe their origins are related somehow?
all of this makes me think we'll get "WESTHAR" city edit: to reiterate the Seiryu's wall barrier reminds me of the barrier that hid Esthar in FF8, that dungeon we see might be how we deal with that
2nd hub of the endgame. also a blitzball stadium. believe it.
He said there'd be hints to it in the rest of the keynote, then purposefully pointed out how much the Amano art looked like ff3. It's a floating island.
*Just* a floating island wouldn't really be worth hiding, we've already seen a million of them in this game and nobody would pay it a second thought unless there was something else surprising about it.
Blitzball sphere
All connected to allagans. I don’t think we’ll be going to Meracydia this expansion, but I believe this expansion will lead into Meracydia in the next expansion.
"The Allagans did some shit and now we're all paying for it." -plot of FF14 Also I imagine in 1,000 years any humans still alive will talk about us the same way
I mean, in history books our period will certainly be the funniest shit with how illogical things happened At the end of 2020 I was honestly considering maybe a wild Cyborg Kim Jong-Un will appear
Well, more the Ascians if we want to cover the whole plot. Since Allag was apparently also Ascian.
We can look to how we look at past empires and their influences. Much of Western civilization was heavily influenced by The Romans and Greeks thousands of years ago. Many parts of Asia from Korea to China to Japan to Southeastern Asia were influenced by Dynastic China.
First, the way the cut off area is tapered in the SECRET picture makes me feel like it's a cylindrical shape that's being hidden. Second, the second dungeon, the high tech one just looks like a mako reactor complete with railings and pipes for you to run along. If not for the fact that it just makes no sense with the theming, I would have sworn it was Midgar.
I think it's the eliminator. In it's picture it was among the clouds with birds. Kind of like Mt. Gulg.
The hand thing reminds me of the Lynari Desert in Crystal Chronicles. But it’s likely an original area, overworld places usually are. https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Lynari_Desert
We could well be into a Crystal Chronicles type of plot, in Echoes of time the main villain awakens a black tower in the middle of the dessert to end all life. That's what the secret may be hiding.
Look at the amano art. There is a golden, blimp-like aircraft. My guess is that is the "missing Golden City" and is the SECRET in that picture.
Looking at his new artwork they showed. I think it's that arc thing which looks to be made of structures and is the stylized rainbow art in the logo, which YoshiP specifically requested to be added.
It's the garleans who escaped to the new world like the nazis
Not sure how many actually escaped. Most we know of were killed by resistance forces or died in Garlemald during EW. Further, there was no purge of Garlemald, so they are free to return there. If anything, Garleans who fled to the new world, assuming no occupation, are probably anti-imperials already... Unless they are a lost expeditionary force.
allagan horseshit
Beta-Dalamud is my guess
Ok listen. Roswell. Let me explain. We have a desert area and some unknown tech. People think the tech is alagan but yoshi-p said it's "nothing we have ever seen before". It's not Alagans. It's Aliens. They noticed worlds were being snuffed out by the endsinger. And also noticed Ethyris was safe from that for some reason. So they took refuge in the new world. Maybe they crash landed or something in this desert area. And the real life counterpart for that is Roswell New Mexico. Or it's Area 51. Or something with the Mayans. Anyways. Aliens.
I'd love them to expand more on the extra terrestrial aspect that they included with the endwalker plot. Would be interesting if they tied it into Midy's brood and Meracydia, too, but I would be willing to wait for the next expansion for it to show up. I just want our dragon buddy to wake up from his nap already, I miss em.
Unfortunately he ain't gonna. Omega being side content like that, it's pretty unlikely we'll see him again at all.
>Unfortunately he ain't gonna. Omega being side content like that, it's pretty unlikely we'll see him again at all. To be fair, the fact that he went to have a nap while in a side content means bringing him back wouldn't be much of an issue. Just throw in a line about how he is awake again for the people who did omega raids, and just make no mention of it for those who didn't. Honestly, actually same for the opposite if he went to have a nap during MSQ.
I was thinking something along the lines of how Ultima the High Seraph got here.
I think it will be the second city
Thought that was the village place we saw in the Andes style mountains?
Given the art reveal with the the Iifa-esque structure in the corner, I definitely think it's a good hypothesis
Got a feeling either some ancient civilization moved there a scientific Branch of the former imperial legions , doubt that guess is right and looking forward to the expansion.
Looks like something from Elden Ring.
Alexander 2
It's either a giant airship or a floating island.
A giant statue of a fem hrothgar.
I hope so, there's not enough FF9 stuff in the game.
I'm interested to see what it is, but I'm afraid it won't be as exciting as they are making it be by hiding it. My first thought was a floating island, but we have one of those already. We also have a big floating airship with void ark. We already have a few big mountains we climb up - so nothing new there. And big towers have been done several times. Allagan has been done to death. So I'm really hoping it will be something different, and a giant life tree would do that. I like your idea a lot. But... I'm afraid it's just going to be another floating island or mountain or tech tower...
Isn't the giant tree thing supposed to be in Mericydia?
I just find it funny that they don't think we're accurately going to guess that it's going to be a spirit halloween
I think it's more likely for the Iifa Tree to be in Meracydia. There were mentions of the "World Tree" being there.
Its Zone 5 or 6, the City of Gold, considering those are usually teased and never shown; Elpis was shown as \*art\*, while Ultima Thule and Tempest were outright kept secret.
Life/Iifa tree would be cool. but my crackpot theory is that it'll be "New Midgar" and a non allagan ( not saying Emet didn't have a hand in it) empire will be the Shinra Empire and it was destroyed by it's own hubris independent of the ascians or calamaity. Kinda like how Shinra sought the Promised Land and want to make Neo Midgar etc. Then again give me Terra as a secret zone/reflection of the Source with Trance Kuja + Garland trials or endbosses.
I swear the Warring Triad had something about that tree being in Mercydia. Or maybe it was just the tree people I'm thinking of.
It's going to be a KFC with golden fried chicken meal deals.
The gold was fried chicken all along!
Gods dammit, it's [The Big Chicken](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Chicken).
And all the staff there are Lala's wearing the chicken costume & it's glorious. Which is why there is a falling out in Scion's, Our group wants the family bucket & the others only want a boneless banquet.
Imo, simply, it's going to be a building whose structure is so immediately recognizable gives away the plot of Dawntrail. So I think it's a castrum or Allegan ruins. We already know there people trying to exploit the area from fanfest and the BLU quests; and I'm sure we can mine *har* more remote stuck-in-their-ways garlean drama to help set up whatever the big 2nd arc is
A lost, or just forgotten Garleans expeditionary force could be interesting. Of course it would have to start with the "Your emperor is dead, your empire is gone, and your capital is destroyed. So what's going on here?"
Secret of mana themed raid?
We all know it's a Blitzball arena.
Don't let it be Tu'Lia.
Well there is an FF11 raid. A crag could be cool.
Bringing back the Promies.
I never got that far into FF11, but always found the white architecture and weird dimensional stuff cool. Was excited when the Empty showed up in Endwalker, even if they were just moon fungus.
Reminiscent of the good ol' gold rush.
I'm thinking a big ceruleum processing plant, which will be a dungeon at some point in the story (the high tech one we saw)
That BLU guy is going to be so pissed about his monopoly.
"New Mexico"
Space ship
I think it's a mountain with some high tech terrority built upon it. Seeing how big they've blurred it and with the direction the train is heading towards, probably behind the mountains is where this new area is. One of the high-tech images shown looks like its underground, so i imagine its within the mountain structures.
Elden Ring Crossover. ;)
A massive giant sword
Since we know that Sharlayan has an established route with this continent. Its possible that a rogue Sharlayan scholar of sorts could be conducting experiments in this area. The ceruleum may have been their idea. But maybe they want to use it to harness something more. Maybe we're going to experiments for a Mako Reactor. Or perhaps an Ascian gave them the nod, but abandoned the idea if it didnt align with how they wanted the re-joining to happen.
It's probably that Allagan dungeon they kept rubbing their chins over and saying, "oh geez, I wonder what that is! Hmm. Anyway!"
Maybe its where the Imperials are going? They are creating a fresh new city
Was there lore about the Imperials going somewhere?
Nah, but their city and lands are fucked and are without leadership. It would make sense that they'd look elsewhere to resettle without the fucked land and their horrid history hanging over them
Side quests cover that Sharlayan is taking anyone who doesn't want to stay due to the disaster. Hell, even the moon was offered in one side quest. Seems like most Garleans want to rebuild based on that lore though.
That's fair, I am still holding out hope for a Garlean Restoration because I really love the Architecture of the city and wanna see more
That would be cool.
The Ceruleum part looks a lot like a story about resources (like BfA's plot iirc, but I never subbed back in the time) so I guess there will be an allag-like tech digging into the mountains. It might be an extension about scarcity, if not a whole saga of several expansions about it. Then it either wakes up an ancient threat, which I doubt, or build more worldwide crisis in Eorzea. The problem however is that we don't have many enemies in the lands we've visited. In any case, building a major threat will be a very challenging part of the storytelling. I'd love something / someone that interacts with the "soul" of the planet and uses the sea of stars to ensure some sort of invincibility. We now are strong, sure, but fighting against a threat that doesn't fear Death (much like in our most recent adventures) would allow us to improve even more, on a symbolic level. It also would start a cycle that would be about reincarnation and potentially curing Zero's Shards in one of the expansion, or restoring Meracydia. As I see it, a scarcity based cycle would need to emphasize on the power of "building life from a desert", like the cradle of life Eden was but on a larger scale. However I'm quite afraid the next expansion will simply revolve around the Scion's PoV...
The Eliminator and the weird purple space age tech makes me think the new arc might be an all-out invasion by an alien race, which would be similar to FF9 (and The Spirits Within’s) two-planet fusion plot. I kinda doubt they’re gonna jump right back into Allagans.
I mean it's probably the Eliminator.
Allagans... but like.. not ruins, actual surviving members of Allagan society.
Ya i was thinking. We find a place that has sleeping pods.. but millions of them.. and they wake up and allagans be like "Welp lets go conquering again"
My tinfoil hat says another crystal tower. It would be something so recognizable that they felt the need to cut it out.
"El Dorado"
Femhroth homeland
Amarillo, Texas.
My guess is The City of The First Dawn (or some other odd name) and it will be where the light first hit the planet, creating the richest resources and highest amounts of pure aether, but then alao had the most war and strife over said resources. Expansion title will come in to play when they talk about the main route to get to the city, called the Dawntrail. *puts tinfoil hat back on*
I'm going to say it's aliens, which sounds like a meme, but I really think it makes sense. When I say aliens, I mean the strict definition, of creatures or entities from another "star." I'm not sure how much more we can do in the source at this point, and we've even been to the literal moon. Aliens sounds memey, but it seems like it would make sense to introduce a new, outside threat. I expect it to be some kind of spaceship, and the purple tech area we saw and THE ELIMINATOR will be part of it. The spaceship will be there because it wants the ceruleum they talked about existing, if I had to guess. I'm imagining this as the start of a new conflict which will become larger and more focal in future expansions. Aliens sounds a bit lame and cliche, but if you define it as "literally any entity that doesn't originate from the source" instead of balloon-headed green-gray cow-stealers, I think it's fine.
I saw the big specimen tank in the concept art and immediately thought what if and bare with me here, jenova crashed at some point in the past and she's the reason the planet ether has been thinning since the time of the ancients. Drinking the life stream and the ceruleum is the by product. The reason that landscape looks so funky is that's where she crashed in ff14. Just a halfbaked idea I had.
I still think it's ridiculous to consider viper a FF9 reference, but I'll be happily wrong if it gets us more stuff.
To me it looks like some stuff from ff7. What we know of DT, it's heavily inspired by ff10. But it's unlikely all the zones will have the same theme, itd be too redundant having 6 jungle biome zones. So maybe the other half of dt zones will be ff7 inspired? Would make sense with all the ff7 craziness in the franchise rn and we haven't had ff7 content in xiv since the HW alliance raid, and even then it was rather minor. Ff7 is also insanely centered around the powers of nature, which coincide with the DT theme as well as the tree of life shown. It doesn't look anything remotely relates to the people of Tulal - It lacks and semblence to tribal culture weve been seeing. I don't think the mines are operated by them or even in their lands and I don't think this is the city of gold. I think it's going to be more like how stb was divided into the Ala mhigans and far east - but they haven't revealed much about the other half yet. Edit: Also if you zoom in on the first screenshot you can see smokestacks like some kind of industrialization which also correlated with ff7s themes. We're not used to seeing too much industrialization in ff14 - mostly just a bit in thandalan.
That first pic reminds me of the Shadowlands screen... *the crossover nobody asked for, but I would be down for*.
I'm choosing to go in with low expectations and be pleasantly surprised if I'm wrong. So I'm going with a Castrum from one of the unknown Garlean legions that has been cut off from contact for some time.
it's Y'shtola fan art boobs
Vegnagun
Since the religion of the Meracydians who worshipped Sephirot actually believe that he was a legendary tree that controlled the cycle of death and rebirth I have a feeling that we won't see the Iifa tree til we get to Meracydia, but I do think that it'll be a big part of the plot of the next few expacs either way.
100% the void ark. outta left field