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

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SOUTH OTHARD:
Nagxia - Bunlal, Dagluk, Castrum Viride (quite likely the Castrum has fallen along with the Empire)
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Dalmasca Superior - The Skatay Range, Nalbina Fortress, Estersand, Westersand, Royal City of Rabanastre
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Dalmasca Inferior - Lea Monde, Golmore Jungle, Greylic's Bend, Zeirchele River, Valnain
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Dalmasca Unknown Location - Revenia, Sal Ghidos, Neimrahava
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NORTH OTHARD:
The Arras Peninsula
The Ryakgyr Peninsula
The Nhaama Desert
The Fanged Crescent
The Dalvalan Grath
The Unpromised
Treasure Isles (somewhere in the Blindfrost)
Raen Petty Kingdoms
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ALDENARD & THE SURROUNDING ISLES:
Mazlaya
The Pearl
The Farreach
The West Shroud
Coerthas Lowlands
Coerthas Northern Highlands
Midlander & Hellsguard settlements somewhere in Abalathia's spine.
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IlSABARD:
Nhalmasque
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Corvos - The Corvos Narrow and the Anchorite at Corvos are mostly located in South Othard
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Republic of Landis (Formerly) - Mons Falconis, Mannatheihwo, Arnsbeirgs
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Cape Mete
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Bozja - Zetina's Grace, Martrvje

Much of this landmass despite Endwalker is still under clouds
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VYLBRAND:
O'Ghomoro
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THE GREAT CONTINENTS YET TO BE EXPLORED:
Meracydia
The New World
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THE NORTHERN EMPTY:
Aerslaent
Isle of Yorn
Nagyn
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KOSHU:
Hingashi - Bukyo, Daitenzan
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OTHER:
The Southern Isles (Home of the Lalafells - Location Unknown)
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UNKNOWN LOCATIONS ON THE MAP:
Floating Isles above Garlemald
Island south of Greylic's Bend covered in clouds
Isles situated in the Glass Ocean far east of Nagxia and south of Koshu
Isles North of Koshu
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Oceans & Seas of the World (This is just for reference, these places we have visited in one form or another and other places we yet to sail through):
Indigo Deep
Bay of Yanxia
Rhotano Sea
Sea of Jade
Sea of Ash
Sirensong Sea
The Bounty
The Glass Ocean
The BlindFrost
Bay of Dha'yuz
Bloodbrine Sea
The Drown
Strait of Merlthor
The Ruby Sea - Rasen Kaikyo

I was hoping to make this like a major thread for exploration theories going forward for the next few years as well.

If you all got information on possible hints toward the future feel free to share!

Edit as of 7/23//2023:

New Areas added thanks to poster feedback, and removed one because I forgot Onsal Hakair was in the game already.

To Do:

Figure out the missing 2 city states of the Fifth Astral Era.

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Originally Posted by Kaliesto

Nagxia - Capital Valnain
Dalmasca (proper) - Capital Dalmasca

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Small note but Valnain is in Dalmasca, not Nagxia. We actually see Valnain in a cutscene and they just reused the assets from Rabanastre, which is Dalmasca's capital, not "Dalmasca". Lea Monde is another city in Dalmasca which means Dalmasca is one of the only countries in the world with multiple cities.

Either way, I think future Dalmasca content is unlikely due to being locked behind both 24-man raid and relic content and we don't know if the writer is coming back. The whole storyline ended very abruptly in the field notes rather than an cutscene.

Corvos seems likely for future content based on how much they keep slamming it in our face in the MSQ and certain side quests, but it could just be setup just in case. Missing from your list are the Cieldades, which are islands separate from the "Southern Islands" and were originally going to be the content in patch 3.0 before they decided to focus on Ishgard instead.

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Originally Posted by MikkoAkure

Small note but Valnain is in Dalmasca, not Nagxia. We actually see Valnain in a cutscene and they just reused the assets from Rabanastre, which is Dalmasca's capital, not "Dalmasca". Lea Monde is another city in Dalmasca which means Dalmasca is one of the only countries in the world with multiple cities.

Either way, I think future Dalmasca content is unlikely due to being locked behind both 24-man raid and relic content and we don't know if the writer is coming back. The whole storyline ended very abruptly in the field notes rather than an cutscene.

Corvos seems likely for future content based on how much they keep slamming it in our face in the MSQ and certain side quests, but it could just be setup just in case. Missing from your list are the Cieldades, which are islands separate from the "Southern Islands" and were originally going to be the content in patch 3.0 before they decided to focus on Ishgard instead.

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Oh I completely goofed, thanks for catching for that

I actually removed Cieldades because we went there very briefly in a certain Job Quest though unless we get to go there proper-like one day.

My brain was turned off regarding Dalmasca, silly mistake on my part.

A heads up, the New World is to the west of Eorzea, and is the homeland of the tribe that practices Blue Magic. Meracydia is to the south of Eorzea.

Aerslaent is in the Northern Empty, Northeast of Sharlayan, and West of Garlemald.
It's labeled on the map.

I have a feeling some of these locations will be turned into dungeons for 6.X patches.
Corvos as speculated by many might turn out to be the relic zone
Present Day Elpis may not exist anymore or at an unknown location ( Given it should have some Ancients ruins or intact structures and no mention of them means it might still be undiscovered to the present day )
I can't say anything else for the others. Meracydia and New world are very unlikely to be anything featured in 6.X patches as they can be their own expansion ( Meracydia expansion and New world expansion )
In fact, while Meracydia can be its own expansion, I don't think it would do justice to feature the new world in a single expansion. Then again the first was features in a single expansion despite it have a landmass big enough to host two-three expansions.

There's also the Farreach, homeland of the Hellsguard, somewhere in Abalathia's Spine.

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Originally Posted by SilverArrow20XX

Aerslaent is in the Northern Empty, Northeast of Sharlayan, and West of Garlemald.
It's labeled on the map.

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Thanks for the correction, I did this late at night at the time of that writing. (I should not have wrote this when I was tired) lol

You can add half of Eorzea to the list. We never actually go to Abalanthia's spine, just some floating islands above it. Half of mor dhona is missing, West shroud, and Coerthas lower highlands.
In the extreme south of Thanalan is Sil'dih, but that seems to be completely forgotten about in the story.

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Originally Posted by Atamis

You can add half of Eorzea to the list. We never actually go to Abalanthia's spine, just some floating islands above it. Half of mor dhona is missing, West shroud, and Coerthas lower highlands.
In the extreme south of Thanalan is Sil'dih, but that seems to be completely forgotten about in the story.

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I was just looking at those 1.0 lore areas today on youtube, added!

I was told recently that West Shroud was once used as a PVP map, but it was removed at some point.

I would definitely love to see a present Elpis.

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Originally Posted by PastelGothGuy01

I would definitely love to see a present Elpis.

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Unfortunately I don't think there would be much left if anything to explore of Elpis in the present day - Elidibus outright stated as much, that "scarcely a trace remains", and thus it could be presumed to have been all but obliterated in the original Final Days, and the constant Calamities would have erased anything of it that did manage to survive on the Source, just like Amaurot.

Having said that, the 'Three Great Continents' map does show a mysterious set of floating islands just north east of Garlemald which has never had any explanation or even name given as to what it is, so....

Personally I think what is left of Elpis may actually be the current area where the 24 mans are taking place this expansion. Remember, everybody just conveniently forgot we were the WoL in 2.0 (it's canon that we're the character from 1.x), which allowed us to do things under the radar. Since that was done on purpose, it's very likely that a certain memory altering device is in the hands of the Twelve.

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

Remember, everybody just conveniently forgot we were the WoL in 2.0 (it's canon that we're the character from 1.x), which allowed us to do things under the radar.

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Actually, that's only canon for characters that were 1.0 imports. For everyone else it's just that we remind people of those people they can't remember.

But also worth recalling that yes, the weird memory issues around the Calamity ARE canon, and were even brought up in Endwalker--even going as far as to mention that we still have no idea what did it or if it was intentional. I know I certainly don't want the Twelve to be hanging out in Elpis--I'd really hate for so much of this expansion's 'postgame' to be linked to a single zone to the exclusion of all else, especially when the expansion includes the somewhat-neglected Thavnair and very-neglected Garlemald (and nearly-100% neglected Labyrinthos, but I'm not sure what you'd put there either). But I admit we don't exactly have evidence to knock that theory off the board right now, and it would make some amount of sense that they flexed something to cause the memory situation, given Louisoix was calling on them at the time.

I really hope something comes of Thancred doing recon work over in Ilsabard and the Far East.

I think I'd rather "finish" our exploration of the original three continents before we go gallivanting off to Meracydia or the New World.

For reference, here's a list of the places Emet-Selch mentioned at the end of Endwalker:

Beneath the waters of the Bounty
The Treasure Islands beyond the frozen waters of Blindfrost, in Othard's North
The Fabled Golden Cities of the New World
The Sacred Sites of the Forgotten People of the South Sea Isles
Meracydia, the Southern Continent

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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Originally Posted by Cleretic

I know I certainly don't want the Twelve to be hanging out in Elpis--I'd really hate for so much of this expansion's 'postgame' to be linked to a single zone to the exclusion of all else, especially when the expansion includes the somewhat-neglected Thavnair and very-neglected Garlemald (and nearly-100% neglected Labyrinthos, but I'm not sure what you'd put there either).

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I can understand not wanting Elpis to be overused so much but to be honest I'd be fine with it because I see this as potentially the last time we see anything related to the ancients, because I think that moving forward to 7.0 the focus will be shifted completely towards something else. And even if we do talk about the ancients still I strongly doubt we'll ever go back to the past yet again to meet them. So seeing a lot of content based off of the ancients seems fair in my opinion - especially because this content seems to finish off some of the lore that's been left unfinished in Endwalker. Zones like Thavnair and Garlemald seem like they could still be heavily used in the future, especially Garlemald. Either way though, I personally like the direction they're going with the content.

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Originally Posted by Cassar

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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After Stormblood and Endwalker, I just want to visit one single place that has one continuous storyline than have our attentions as well as the narrative split between two completely different continents in the world just to have them checked off as “we did it”.

Would love to see more Garlean areas. Still way too much cloud cover on that map.

I still want to know where the Gardens of Xarakish are.

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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.

Map

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.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

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.

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Exactly. The IVth is defeated in the Field Notes-epilogue of Bozja, which means possible future Dalmasca content would need to be tied to Bozja, and the type of content Yoshi-P mentioned fits with that more than an expansion since it’s easier to ask players to complete Bozja to access a side story than the main story.

The IVth legion exists independently to the status of the Garlean Empire as a whole since they deserted from it before the Save the Queen starts. The IVth then went on to control Dalmasca, Bozja, and Nagxia with Valnain as its capital city. So you can’t have any future content in Dalmasca, Bozja, or Nagxia, whether it’s an expansion or a side story, without first completing Save the Queen since that entire region is tied directly to the fate of the IVth, which is dealt with in that storyline.

While probably not as bad as doing Shadowbringers without doing Crystal Tower, which is required now anyway, it would be super awkward to have a whole main storyline where you go to liberated Dalmasca without actually doing the questline that destroys most of the IVth legion and leads to the liberation of Dalmasca. You can’t just have “nods” to your completion of the quests when Valnain and the rest of the country is only free (maybe) of its imperial overlord Gabranth only because of Save the Queen and nothing to do with the Garleans in Endwalker.


Dalmasca is in Othard, but Ilsabard is a big place and we can still go there without Dalmasca and a possible post-liberation side story in Dalmasca if you completed Bozja would make sense if we did as well and hopefully lead to SE streamlining requirements for the 3 instances in it that give people trouble.

I don't think that this matters as much as you think it does. Most of the raid series are incredibly important to the story to date, but they're still optional. The assumption is that someone at some point has gone off and dealt with Bahamut, Alexander, and the rest of them to address their potentially world ending threats. And if you go back and do those quests yourself, you discover that person was actually you. Who would have thought.

We weren't directly involved with Dalmasca's liberation. It happened offscreen. A company of heroes were responsible for putting a stop to the IVth. It doesn't really matter narratively whether you're actually the Hero of Zadnor and were part of them or not. You might be, you might not be. But Southern Ilsabard's 'liberation' is just backdrop at the end of the day. If you're going to introduce a threat to the region it's not just going to be simply a case of 'defeat the Empire', because we've done that already. It's going to be something new, built in the setting of these lore references that have already been planted.

A more valid obstacle is the fact that they'd probably need to have the storyboard for next expansion's trailer done around now, and any forays to the area are probably going to require at least some prior consultation with Matsuno. So it's really a question of whether they have time to could coordinate such a thing now or whether it gets shelved for later. But it's definitely feasible.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

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.

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Out of every single place ever described in this game, Corvos is the one place I'm genuinely surprised we haven't gone to. They were slathering on so many references to it being very directly relevant and having very present-day problems in Endwalker that I was sure they just HAD to be relevant soon. But nope, not a peep from them at all in the entire postgame.

And the weird part is that unlike a lot of the other places we haven't been, I'm actually not excited because of that. Every reason to care about Corvos was only really interesting when the iron was hot; the longer it takes for us to go there the less interesting its hooks are, because ti will just feel like reheating Endwalker leftovers.

I was honestly feeling like they were setting up for the relic-related questing to be over in Corvos, but everything over there seems to have conveniently resolved itself for the time being with the second legion being wiped out by the Final Days, the beasts eliminated by the Eorzean Alliance and others, and the Corvosi rebels having "reclaimed" the land from the Garleans.

All this talk about instability in the wake of the Final Days/Zodiark's destruction and a "great change" coming to Etheriys suggests something is going to blow up eventually, so I suppose only time will tell why we go there, since they did mention they have "plans" for it.

If we end up having to do Shard hopping again, if I were them, I'd make Corvos incredibly important for it. Perhaps it being "Ground Zero" for where the Sundering happened so long ago, meaning the Source and Shards all have their strongest link there. It makes the region important, and makes keeping it safe moreso (and explains why Emet-Selch made it so important for the Garlean Empire to take and hold).

Corvos is likely relatively rich in aether, much like Eorzea, which translates into fertile land (hence 'Locus Amoenus'). Hard to say if there's any specific significance to this in terms of shard hopping.

I think that the Crystal Tower is going to remain the main reference point for shard travel for now, though, given that it's already been used that way before. I don't think that the tower itself is the critically important part, so much as the nearby Silvertear Lake. Much like its counterpart on the First, it's a popular spot for powerful sleeping entities. That's coupled with the fact that the Twelve's Omphalos sits in the middle of it, and there's a certain amount of spiritual symbolism behind the 'navel' as the center of things. If I had to guess a point where all the shards are connected to each other and to the lifestream (the ouroboros, if you will), that would probably be it.

I suppose another question worth asking is 'Where exactly was Allag's capital situated?' The Crystal Tower was just a conduit, so it would have just been built wherever there was a suitable power supply, hence its location by Silvertear. But the tower itself was only created in the midst of the war with Meracydia, so the capital's location wouldn't have been picked with this in mind. The underlying backstory that we're slowly uncovering here is Allag vs. Meracydia, so part of this story does have to come from the Three Great Continents. But where?

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Originally Posted by Lyth

I suppose another question worth asking is 'Where exactly was Allag's capital situated?' The Crystal Tower was just a conduit, so it would have just been built wherever there was a suitable power supply, hence its location by Silvertear. But the tower itself was only created in the midst of the war with Meracydia, so the capital's location wouldn't have been picked with this in mind. The underlying backstory that we're slowly uncovering here is Allag vs. Meracydia, so part of this story does have to come from the Three Great Continents. But where?

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I can't possibly imagine that the Crystal Tower wasn't close to the Allagan capital, if not directly in it; by the end it was also acting as something of an imperial palace, given that throne room at the top. And remember that it was definitely more than 'just' a conduit and battery for aether; while that might've been its purpose for being built, it was definitely more by the end.

Especially considering the only real Allagan facilities we know of that weren't related to Azys Lla or left by Dalamud are either there or Seal Rock. (And like, one ruin in Coerthas that we still don't really get.) Surely if their capital city was anywhere, then both real-world logic and narrative satisfaction says that it should be somewhere that their ruins have already been found, right?

Intuitively, what you're saying seems like it should be right. But we haven't seen a definitive citation about the capital's location itself.

From a storywriting perspective, it seems like Mor Dhona is the easiest answer, and upcoming lore from Orthos may well support that point. It may also be that after the Crystal Tower was built, it ended up being Allag's primary center of operation, and they simply built a new capital around it. But the tower itself was only built after Allag waged war on Meracydia, which was well after they conquered the Three Great Continents. So the original 'country' of Allag itself prior to its widespread expansion could in theory be anywhere on the landmass, including places that we haven't visited yet. In fact, it's entirely possible that a currently existing city could well have been built on the ruins of the former capitol, because that's how these things often pan out.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

But the tower itself was only built after Allag waged war on Meracydia, which was well after they conquered the Three Great Continents. So the original 'country' of Allag itself prior to its widespread expansion could in theory be anywhere on the landmass, including places that we haven't visited yet.

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The Crystal Tower was created many centuries before the war on Meracydia, not after it. Xande was only revived because of the energy from the Crystal Tower and it was only after his resurrection that the war in Meracydia happened.

It was also originally made to collect energy from the sun, not the ambient aether of the land. And it was made specifically to power “homes and manufactories”, which would put the Allag capital in Silvertear/Mor Dhona. That the first emperor Xande’s original tomb was located in Silvertear seals the deal. The Allagan Empire is also described as being from Eorzea and having conquered Ilsabard and Othard later.


Edit: I think the part where you might have gotten that confused is that Dalamud itself came after the Meracydian campaign. Dalamud was meant to augment the Crystal Tower's already existing solar collecting abilities since an orbital solar collector with Bahamut sitting in it can get more power for the tower in space and beam it down, which ended the Allagan Empire.

The bit about collecting energy from the sun was an inference made by the Sons of Saint Coinach as per the EE. I'm not really sure how relevant it still is given what we know about aether crystals. Do you have citations for the rest?

Ahh... let me guess, are you referencing 1.x material?