Return to Ivalice Speculation ...And hype

Hello Eorzeans! I'm very excited for the upcoming Return to Ivalice storyline. While we can certainly expect flashy and mechanically intensive raid bosses, I'm here instead to speculate on the plot of the adventure. I have a special place in my heart for Ivalice, starting from Final Fantasy Tactics Advance before moving back to the original FF Tactics as well as other games. To that end, I have some speculations on how the story will go, where it will take place, and more! I'd love to have some help supplementing my ideas with other plot details, bosses, and more! Let the speculation frenzy begin!

The Storyline will take place in Rabanstre:
In the lorebook, Dalmasca is presented as an Othardian territory that was subjugated by the Garleans. Rabanastre is specifically stated as their capital city that was bombed heavily by the Garlean airships. This is a logical location for a raid tier, as it would be an immediately striking environment. Additionally, it would also have some thematic similarities to Doma and Ala Migho, which clearly show the damage that the war has caused for their people. Additionally, having it take place in a ruined city allows them to ignore having to have large amounts of NPCs around, and lets us play adventurer without worrying about the general citizenry much. Additionally, the city having been destroyed could lead to a situation like Vagrant Story, with various factions trying to explore and exploit them.

...But not Dalmasca:
Dalmsasca will be important to the storyline, but players will not travel much outside of the destroyed city itself. Although I might be wrong about this, I've never heard of a patch adding a full open world zone, which would probably be necessary to support Dalmasca. I could definitely see us getting a 'home base' style area in the city similar to the Redbill base or our little camp in the Deltascape. That being said, the people of Dalmasca will certainly come up in the story, seeing how they relate/react to the events as well as probably having prominent NPCs from the region.

Adventure Archeology!:
What we know of the storyline (which SE has reasonably kept rather limited) relates it directly to the legend of Delita and Ramza, and the plot of Final Fantasy Tactics (War of the Lions). I imagine our characters will have been lead there by the Doman shinobi explicitly sent to other regions at the end of Stormblood. They would see a chance to find great knowledge in the ruins to go there and capture it. Since many players would wonder about the utility of finding knowledge and stories alone, there will probably be some sort of powerful artifact, secret, or other Mcguffin that an evil faction desires.

...and some Old Friends:
I believe that, fitting with Stormblood, the primary human antagonists will be the Garlean Empire. I don't necessarily see them being the only targets of our Raid shenanigans, but instead serving a similar role to the Nazis in Indiana Jones films. They will probably be the ones unleashing ancient evils on accident, or merely hounding the characters in their attempts to explore the ruins. I don't know if it would be another legion and legatus, or merely some prominent commander in the XII. Given the nonnumerical themes with their respective FF games, it would be fine enough to use the XII, possibly having them desperate after the fall of Xenos, Doma, and Ala Migho. Why are the Garleans there of course? There are reasons for that below...

Finding the Truth:
While the full plot of FF Tactics is a bit too complex for a raid storyline, there are certain aspects that can definitely be included. It's already been mentioned that the story of Ramza and Delita is a Garlean Legend, and that relates to an important part of the premise of FF Tactics. The framing device of Final Fantasy Tactics is that of a scholar investigating the story, and finding conclusions contrary to the narrative pushed by the Church and Traditional academia. In the Church telling of the story, there were no demonic cults or magic, and most importantly Delita is the hero of the tale, not Ramza. I believe that they already mentioned in passing that the Garleans see it as a story of a peasant rising up to greatness, which would be both better to their values and fit this narrative. As a result, I see this as the narrative that the Garleans are pushing, possibly using it as propaganda for their treatment of the Dalmascans. However, as we all know, Ramza is the real hero of the War of the Lions, a vagabond and rogue that saved the world. That being said, this wouldn't fit the Garlean's pretty little narrative about gaining power through service, so they would have quashed this interpretation. Exploring Rabanastre, however, will bring many of these truths to light.

Viva la Revolution?
I'm already guessing that there will be some sort of other threat or issue within the city that needs to be dealt with, probably one that the Garleans will try and exploit. Naturally, through the cleverness and desperate battles of the heroes everything will be alright though, and the Garleans will be defeated. I'm also guessing that the true knowledge will be let out to the public, bringing them one step towards revolution against the Garlean Empire.

So that's some of the more major speculations that I'm guessing for the storyline, I'd love to hear other opinions and ideas though! Either way I'm very much looking forward to the Raids and their associated storyline, and hope that it turns out well.

Well, if the intention is to honour Ivalice as a setting then it's almost certainly going to be very nuanced in regards to pretty much every character involved in the story-line. I doubt we'll be seeing something as simple as the Garleans being the straight up antagonists and the protagonists being the flawless good guys as that is not what Ivalice is about and it isn't even what FFXIV is about.

Final Fantasy Tactics, in particular, is very complicated because Ramza is a protagonist in the story but Delita is also a protagonist whilst serving as an antagonist at the same time. If not for Delita's actions, Ramza would arguably not have succeeded at all. As for the possible liberation of Rabanastre? I suppose we'll just have to wait and see how it ends up happening. Hopefully it ends up being tied to some sort of Larsa type character who agrees to give Rabanastre back to an 'Ashe' type character in exchange for peace and trade. That would be far more refreshing than yet another province being lost to what is supposed to be one of the most influential and powerful forces present on Hydaelyn at the moment.

I also suspect that one portion of the raid will be heavily inspired by Final Fantasy Tactics, another will be inspired mostly by Vagrant Story and yet another will be inspired mostly by Final Fantasy XII.

I just hope that it isn't treated as a self contained story that is never really referenced in the MSQ's. Otherwise we just miss out on important plot points being relevant again beyond their initial introduction.

While there's plenty that I'm excited for (and, if I'm being honest, plenty that I'm a bit trepidatious about), I'm mostly curious to finally find out once and for all what continent Dalmasca is actually on.

Lots of people say Othard, but the Lore book heavily implies Ilsabard (though not to the extent that Othard would be a contradiction): it claims that airships were required to reach it because mountains, and that it was taken while Garlemald was still in the process of conquering Ilsabard and before they started going after Othard in earnest. Even the recent Live Letter was ambiguous about it, claiming that it was in a desert to the north of Othard; that phrasing implies to me that it's not part of Othard itself, especially since the only desert in Northern Othard is the Nhaama, and not only does Garlemald not have a presence in the Steppe proper, there's nothing even hinting a connection between Dalmasca and the Xaela. If it weren't for the desert claim, I would consider the mountain range to the northwest of the Steppe (the Dalvalan Grath?) as a possible location, but...desert.

All of this is complicated by the Koji claims that Rabanastre is in Othard, an interview in which he details it as a separate location from Dalmasca (although may have misspoke and meant Dalmasca all along?). I've seen some theories that it's part of the impassable land bridge between Othard and Ilsabard, which is likely to the southwest, in the region still shrouded in clouds on the world map. That seemed plausible to me, but wouldn't it make more sense to have the region where it's located unshrouded so that the shiny new map isn't instantly outdated by the in-game one three months into the expansion? Gah!

I will be found dead from utter hype overload if Bozja gets namedropped again/expanded upon/visited. I'm weak and require this