We're getting a "new complementary story" related to the Endwalker MSQ... (Spoilers)

As per the recent Famitsu interview involving Yoshi, Ishikawa, and Oda.

Given that they tend to typically refer to the side stories as...well, side stories on top of specifying that this story would be "smaller in scale but detailed", I'm feeling like they're going to adhere to the pattern of making 6.1-3 about tying up loose ends from the expansion's story with only the .4/5 patches leading into the next expansion proper.

With all the relentless Zenos avatar-related teasing Yoshi was doing even before the expansion's release, I'd be really surprised if the thing doesn't end up becoming a focal point in this story; moreso with Yoshi's not-so subtle suggestion that the voidsent behind it might be our shard from the 13th.

They have a crap ton of stuff to resolve so they will not lack for content options.

Mostly I want more Garlean lore. And armor. And a head piece that looks like a Garlean eye. And Garlean weapons. And an option to change Grand Company to the Garlean Army.

Simple stuff really.

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an option to change Grand Company to the Garlean Army.

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at this point youll have to rebuild all of garlemald for that. maybe the next restoration can be the capital.

Is this the stuff they said would involve Omega or something new/else?

Where was the implication of the Voidsent being a shard of the WoL, was it just interviews? Because I think that nothing in game hinted at that.

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Originally Posted by Necrotica

They have a crap ton of stuff to resolve so they will not lack for content options.

Mostly I want more Garlean lore. And armor. And a head piece that looks like a Garlean eye. And Garlean weapons. And an option to change Grand Company to the Garlean Army.

Simple stuff really.

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At least it's confirmed that we're getting Garlean armor(s) along the lines of the Centurions, as well as gunblades, as per the Q&A. Also, "complementary side story" makes it sound like we're getting some story in the form of a seperate booklet along the lines of what we got in Stormblood.. unless I'm misreading it, anyway.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

As per the recent Famitsu interview involving Yoshi, Ishikawa, and Oda.

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Do you have a link to the whole thing? I've seen people posting fragments of it as screenshots but not the whole interview.

This is the one I'm reading. Some interesting stuff in there.

I really like that they were so open about the writing process, much like you would organically unfold a tabletop campaign as players progressed through it. I think that non-writers tend to have very unrealistic expectations about how far in advance you can develop a serial, collaborative work and game companies more often than not tend to unnecessarily feed into that belief. They have a fantastic writing team.

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Originally Posted by RicaRuin

Where was the implication of the Voidsent being a shard of the WoL, was it just interviews? Because I think that nothing in game hinted at that.

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Yoshi P said something along the lines of "it would be interesting if it turned out to be an alternate version of our WoL" in one of the pre-EW interviews.

Given that Zenos was randomly shown to possess the same soul sight as Emet and Hythlodaeus, it would be a logical way to have made the ability carry more significance if he had used it to gaze into the void and reach out to a voidsent with an uncanny resemblance to his "one and only friend", and Yoshi also bluntly saying "I can't talk about that" in response to a question regarding how Zenos became a reaper just made me further entertain the possibility.

He said it's a secret and then the game did nothing with it (except making it look like child who has their eyes covered by someone else). Also reaper story was just a generic side story, which could have been dropped anywhere in the world...

I'd like to think Yoshi's not acting all secretive just to bait us, especially since he's still acting that way as of the latest live letter, which wouldn't really make sense if everything Zenos-related was done and dusted.

Assuming he didn't just have access to a soul crystal like we did, Zenos might've had to resort to more...creative methods of forging a pact with a voidsent, and with the Tower of Babil being a huge aether conduit akin to the Crystal Tower, perhaps diverting some of its power into creating a voidgate in like manner to the one we used to reach the World of Darkness was how he pulled that off.

It might also explain why the tower continues to radiate its ominous aura even in absence of Anima if void shenanigans are involved somehow.

It's probably stuff in the general category of 'giving more detail would itself be spoiling what's coming, so they have to be vague'. Kinda like how, if you spoiler-warning all the side content relevant to the Ascians, the fact that Eden is on that list would itself spoil Eden. (Incidentally, if anyone has a good term for that, I'm in need of one for my videos, I bump into those a lot.)

Like, consider that we now know that the all-roles capstone questline is going to be in Garlemald, but we know nothing else about it. If they were specific about saying that we were going to learn more about, say, Nerva, then suddenly we know exactly what that one questline we know of that's going to Garlemald is going to be focused on.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

I'd like to think Yoshi's not acting all secretive just to bait us, especially since he's still acting that way as of the latest live letter, which wouldn't really make sense if everything Zenos-related was done and dusted.

Assuming he didn't just have access to a soul crystal like we did, Zenos might've had to resort to more...creative methods of forging a pact with a voidsent, and with the Tower of Babil being a huge aether conduit akin to the Crystal Tower, perhaps diverting some of its power into creating a voidgate in like manner to the one we used to reach the World of Darkness was how he pulled that off.

It might also explain why the tower continues to radiate its ominous aura even in absence of Anima if void shenanigans are involved somehow.

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I really think this will turn out to be the case. I'm predicting we will go back to Garlemald in 6.x and investigate the tower, and eventually his voidsent. Honestly think Zenos himself (maybe with the avatar, maybe not) could be in the void/13th now. Maybe we will have a void themed expansion later on. In the most recent interview, Yoshi P said "we fight against the void in other games, so maybe that will happen in 14" (something along those lines) so I'm VERY sure on this now.

I feel really stupid for not noticing it sooner, but there's a little detail in that final cutscene with Zenos that I overlooked several times.

Namely, when he reverts from his enshrouded form it's only partially and one of his arms remains transformed, which feels like it may have been suggesting his avatar was already starting to overtake him as his soul waned.

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Originally Posted by nighttimebunny

I really think this will turn out to be the case. I'm predicting we will go back to Garlemald in 6.x and investigate the tower, and eventually his voidsent. Honestly think Zenos himself (maybe with the avatar, maybe not) could be in the void/13th now. Maybe we will have a void themed expansion later on. In the most recent interview, Yoshi P said "we fight against the void in other games, so maybe that will happen in 14" (something along those lines) so I'm VERY sure on this now.

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I really hope 7.0 is not a Void expansion. It would be to soon after ShB. Also I might add that we not only just had a shard hopping expansion in 5.0 but also half of the zones in 6.0 were not on modern day Ethyries, with one being in the past and the other two in space. I think we are due an expansion that has all zones on the modern day source/Ethyries, like I do not know maybe Ilsabard since it is hinted to have got hit the hardest with both the civil war and Final Days. I just want to explore more of the source next expansion, as a roleplayer this is what helps build characters backstory and the last time we had an expansion that had all 6 zones there was 4.0. Also i am still bummed that Garlemald only got one zone and no hub city and seems to be getting very little side content and one way that can help make up for that would be an Ilsabard expansion. Also i might add that this is a good way of doing a down to earth more grounded story after the apocalypse, emphasis on down to earth.

I am extra curious about just how things are going to play out now that they've specifically mentioned that what starts off as an adventure for the heck of it is quickly going to gain a more specific purpose.

Moreso with the dungeon's name apparently being important enough that they don't want to mention it out of fear of setting expectations. I assume we'll probably be able to infer what it is from the patch trailer tonight, though...

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

Moreso with the dungeon's name apparently being important enough that they don't want to mention it out of fear of setting expectations. I assume we'll probably be able to infer what it is from the patch trailer tonight, though...

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Yeah, it sounds like YoshiP is trying to manage expectations. I got the impression the dungeon name would cause an explosion of speculation and hype, but in the actual patch story it's just going to be "oh, we're going to this place, okay" at most.

Seems like the "ruins beneath the Bounty" Emet-Selch mentioned are the dungeon, so I'm wondering if maybe he told us about those places for a special reason, not just because he thought they were particularly interesting.

Said dungeon is also apparently heavily inspired by the Alzadaal Ruins in FF XI and might end up bearing the same name, so perhaps that's why they didn't want to mention it in advance.

EDIT: I just realized Alzadaal was already referenced in-game with it being the name of the Au Ra leader whose tribe was responsible for founding Radz-at-Han in conjunction with the Arksodara (As per one of the sightseeing logs). That said, it wouldn't surprise me if said ruins were both constructed by and named after that same founding father.