If there is time travel involved, and it's not implemented as temporary "instanced content" you do at critical story points then return to the normal game-world, then I think the nature of the game makes it necessary to have a stable portal between past and future.

Permanently moving characters out of the standard time bubble could make a huge chronological mess out of sidequests, require all the old fixed NPCs to remain, and would mean the "redesigned" zones are still forced to fit the shape of the current ones so people "from the other time" don't walk through walls and objects. No adding or removing platforms, blocking or opening passages.

One of the other things mentioned alongside those so-far-reliable leaks is that the Crystal Tower would be involved, and (if I'm remembering correctly) finding a portal there. In any case that would tie in with the ending of that questline where Nero throws away his magitek compass - and then it seems to have found a signal as he walks away.


...you don't suppose we might be hearing from G'raha Tia??? Could that add up? The voice would suit him, he may well be waiting years for us, and he's essentially the last of the Allagans now... plus hints of further plot involving Princess Salina.

Small chance, of course, especially since it's an optional quest and they don't like crossing those into MSQ. But we did see a brief flash of G'raha during one of the Omega cutscenes. Or at least I did. No idea if they'd make it a variable cutscene depending on whether you'd completed the other raids or not.