Unexplored Locations (6.1 to 7.0 Thread) *Spoilers throughout 6.0 as well"

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Originally Posted by Cassar

I have a feeling that these will be the next areas we'll be visiting, and I do believe that we could visit both Meracydia and the New World in 7.0, given that historically we have visited two major cities in the same expansion, such as Radz-at-Han and Old Sharlayan in Endwalker.

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They can do that without splitting the story between two major regions...like they did in Heavensward and Shadowbringers.

If we go to Ilsabard next, I'd expect Corvos to have the "main" capital city while the smaller hub could be one of the provincial towns.

We've already been to Bozja, which should be to the west of both Dalmasca and Corvos, and to the east of Gyr Abania. So while it's technically under fog, it shouldn't be. In terms of southern areas that we haven't been to on the Three Great Continents, we really need to see Dalmasca, Corvos, and Nagxia. I think the rest can be explored as we travel north to Aerslaent at a later date. A lot of it is likely going to be frozen tundra though.

Id enjoy going to Illsabard for 7.0 though they seem to have a set way of only having 6 Locations and two cities i dunno if that would work with how massive Illsabard is... like would the developers wanna switch up the formula to start off with a bit of a lore bang for us is the question? Id love to see some kind of a factional warfare among the new emerging states for power and control maybe as not the main story but tied into it.

We'll probably have a better idea after 6.3, or at least the upcoming Live Letter preview for it on 23/12/22.

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You're not going to explore all of Ilsabard in a single expansion, and there's no need to obsessively uncover every part of this map before proceeding. If the Void is going to be the overarching plot thread for this story arc, then the story will likely need to get us to Meracydia within about four to five expansions or so. For practical purposes, I think the next most likely place to build a story will be around Dalmasca and Corvos. We've already met Fran on a few occasions, so a starting point could be wherever Lente's Tears and that mystery 'Ashe' are currently holed up at the moment. One possible starting city for the region could be Valnain, which sits on the map just south of Nagxia (the latter which is the location of the Golmore Jungle, as per the Ivalice questline). There's also an entry in the EE Vol 2 (p.98) on Dalmasca which makes reference to Leá Monde, a city known for its wine (and perhaps demonic Voidsent cults). With the recent remake of Tactics Ogre it's probably a fairly convenient time to explore the region in more detail.

If that's the case, the second city would probably be Locus Amoenus in Corvos. Fourchenault hinted that there were older names for the city during the role quests, so I wouldn't be surprised if one such name is Archadia (given that they are both Classical literature references to 'paradise'.) They've already done this once by linking Rabinastre and Lesalia. There are lots of possible Void-tie ins here, especially with the lore from the Bozja questline and factions like the Sect of Germonique and the Church of Locus.

As for where they go for the subsequent expansion, it's really hard to say. You could continue to explore northward for another expansion, or just head to the South Sea Isles next and come back when it's time to visit Aerslaent and the New World.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

For practical purposes, I think the next most likely place to build a story will be around Dalmasca and Corvos.

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The issue with Dalmasca is that it’s tied up in the Bozja questline, which would require players to complete that whole thing before being able to start the new expansion. Unless SE makes changes to it, it would be a rough bottleneck and a mess overall.

Norvrandt in Shadowbringers had a much, much closer tie in to Crystal Tower than Dalmasca does to the Bozja questline. You'll probably get a few nods for completing both Bozja and Return to Ivalice beforehand much like you did having completed Crystal Tower before Shadowbringers, but there's no reason to make it mandatory.

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Originally Posted by MikkoAkure

The issue with Dalmasca is that it’s tied up in the Bozja questline, which would require players to complete that whole thing before being able to start the new expansion. Unless SE makes changes to it, it would be a rough bottleneck and a mess overall.

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Not really, since you never go to Dalmasca itself with Bozja. They could just require you to finish Ivalice and call it a day.

Gabranth's first and last cutscenes in the Bozja questline take place in occupied Valnain, which is his personal capital during his time as Legatus. In an interview, Matsuno said that if they come back to Dalmasca, it would be specifically in a time gap after Bozja continuing where it left off. Yoshi-P himself said in the same interview that future Dalmasca content would end up being story content like the trip in Cid's memories with a trial at the end like our fight against Varis.

Fran has less of a role in Bozja than in Return to Ivalice, but she still shows up and ends the storyline with an open-ended invite to continue everything in Dalmasca. Considering how the Field Records end, Matsuno and Yoshi-P's comments and their lack of interest in yet another "liberation" storyline, and the main characters of Dalmasca being in the Bozja storyline, we're probably not going to see a whole expansion take place there.

I was under the impression that the same Famitsu interview with Yoshi-p and Matsuno from September 2021 also mentioned that when we did go to Dalmasca after said time gap, Dalmasca would be liberated. Which fits with the entire region now, given the recent collapse of the Garlean Empire. The entirety of Southern Ilsabard (Bozja/Corvos/Dalmasca) is by and large a homage to Matsuno's works, and always will be. You either build an expansion around it or you don't. You'd have the same issue writing an expansion about it in five years as you do now.

They could always ignore Ilsabard entirely and head off into the South Sea Isles to do an expansion around Spiran Summoning rituals, Blitzball, and Lalafell pirates en route to Meracydia, but who knows.

Corvos was never involved with any of Matsuno's works, and those three regions only account for an extremely small portion of Ilsabard's landmass.

Considering that the continent was described as being in "varying degrees of chaos" by Thancred I'd like to think a problem is going arise there sooner then later.