Battle for Ishgard - 2.5 p2 screenshots.

[HakuroDK]

I'll be very disappointed if it's just an instanced trial instead of a massive open event like in the end of 1.0...

To be fair, 1.0 was ending and the devs had absolutely nothing to lose. Whereas the game will have a smooth transition between 2.0 and 3.0 AND the fact that Ishgard is pretty much locked behind the main storyline, it feels appropriate for this to be a trial rather than open-world content, especially where, were this a massive open event, games would probably end up crashing left and right, 90k disconnects would occur everywhere, and only a handful of people with the best network connections and hardware setups would benefit.

If it's a trial, everyone can experience that battle at their own pace.