will we get Garleans Race?

[BasicBlake]

I can't really picture them giving us the enemy race anytime soon

[Jennah]

Well, it looks like we're probably going to liberate Garlemald instead of destroying it.
So at some point the WoL may well be an honorary Garlean - in the same since she's an honorary Ishgardian, Doman, Ala Mhigan, and Crystarium...ian.
It's even possible she might eventually receive a Garlean-based job, that doesn't rely on Aether.

... but actually playing as a Garlean, from level 1 and the start of the ARR story? Never going to happen.

[Theodric]

Pureblood Garleans can cast magic, it's just exceptionally rare for them to be able to do so. With that said, even as a huge fan of Garlemald I think it'd work better to just add a third eye glamour to the game. There's a lot of Garlean role-players already who would love something like that to be added. It's easy enough to design a Midlander, Highlander or Elezen to look 'Garlean'. It's just the lack of a third eye glamour that makes it difficult. Currently circlets, helmets and certain hairstyles serve as a workaround.

[Sheldinn]

As things stand I doubt we'll see them. I could possibly see them being added once we have a xpac where we actually go to and spend time in garlemald, or perhaps after the expac and we become the garleans' new best friends.

Obviously there'd need to be some sort of story/questline to give them a reason to be able to use magic so they could play the various jobs. It could be something a little more large scale such as we learn about the exact cause for their inability to manipulate aether, such as possible ascian meddling/manipulation in the past or perhaps some "curse" type effect as aftermath from a battle their ancestors could have had with a powerful, as-of-yet unknown elder primal. Then in their usual fashion, Urianger and Y'shtola big brain their way to a "cure" and we're able to reactivate their ability to cast magics.

Another possible solution that could be more of a side thing could be that Cid comes up with some sort of device that essentially assists garleans and allows them to manipulate Aether. This could also be spun in such a way that makes it not available for all garleans so they can keep the no-magic trait for the majority of the race. The theoretical device could only work for rare garleans who are relatively more apt to cast magic (when compared to other garleans) and then magnifies that slight affinity to make them on par with the rest of us.


However, a bigger reason that they want be added IMO is that they're too similar to Hyurs. Most of the FFXIV races are already very similar to each other visually compared to races in some other games such as wow. Garleans however have no distinguishing trait beyond the third eye. This would often end up being covered depending if you have a helm glamour or even your hair style. So the question would be "why bother?". If they were added there'd have to be some sort of addition to the story/lore to enable access to all the jobs, but is the effort of all that really worth the reward?

Personally I think the easier and more resource efficient solution would to be to add some sort of fake third eye head piece glam so people can role play if they wish and there's not so many lore and design hoops to jump through.

[Kusanagi7]

Never going to happen for some of reasons already stated in thread but also if the did add option alot of the story up to this point would have to change to take into account of us being a garlean n im 99% sure the dev team wont do that so no they wont also if they did then people will ask where are male viera n female hrothgar.

[Iscah]

As things stand I doubt we'll see them. I could possibly see them being added once we have a xpac where we actually go to and spend time in garlemald, or perhaps after the expac and we become the garleans' new best friends.

It can't work the way you're thinking of it.

You're only picturing it in terms of your character moving forward and maybe having the chance to fantasia into a Garlean in 6.1 when we're allies now and your race won't matter.

But playable races need to be compatible with the entire storyline. If you can play as a Garlean then you need to be able to play as one from the moment you wake up in that carriage as a new adventurer. Even transforming means you retroactively always have been that race.

That would mean a huge amount of extra work for the script writers, essentially requiring a different conversation anywhere it might be relevant that you're Garlean. It would also be unable to adjust to whether you're "concealing your race" and hiding your third eye or displaying it openly.

The other option is that you play a Garlean but the script makes no effort to recognise you as such, which is going to be very jarring. It already happens on occasion with other races, and it would be worse for a Garlean.

[SpiralMask]

@OP: it's possible, but there would be a massive fit from folks who are waiting for the other half of the shadowbringer races (especially after all the fuss the devs made about limited resources and only being able to half-ass the two after much deliberation), myself included

[lolicon09]

I mean, the only Job they could use would be Machinist, which is not available until you start Heavensward

[Duskane]

just give people the pearl on there head as a armour piece most of them are just elezen anyway

[SXTC]

Aren't Garleans technically human? Since we already have a human race to refer to them as another one would be somewhat... well... racist..