Revelations from the Announcement Showcase

[Enkidoh]

It was confirmed to be Fandaniel during the Showcase by Yoshi-P.

Urk, disregard my ramblings then. It was a nice theory while it lasted though. :P

Either way, thank you for the clarification (I missed the stream and was just caught up by a friend on Discord who did watch it).

EDIT: rewatching the trailer again, it is definetely Fandaniel - I don't know why I thought he was a woman there.

[Zohar_Lahar]

I'll reserve judgement. The image at the end of Hydaelyn/Zodiark is interesting, and I wonder if that's where they're going with Anima. Incidentally, a screamer, summoned from the Underworld, and one born of pain, something Fandaniel touches on in one of his rants. My guesses are some forced fusion of the two primals, perhaps linked to the ultimate origin of the Final Days.

It's like what the Word of the Mother once said: "Before there was life, in the depths of the aetherial sea, Light and Dark did once dwell as one. But the Darkness coveted power, and the balance was broken. Thus was I forced to banish Him unto the distant heavens, to forever remain apart. A moon bound. In sundering the star did we cry out, and the barriers 'twixt planes chance to falter."

Now granted, she failed to mention the part about the Final Days and them both being summoned as eldest primals by the ancients. Seeing as the new Terminus beasts once again resemble voidsent, there must be a connection between the Final Days and the Flood of Darkness that befell the Thirteenth, and the Flood of Light that almost claimed the First.

[Cilia]

So, now that I've provided a digest on the front page...

I'm not really hyped, but it's hard to get me hyped up. I don't heal since leaving SCH behind at the end of ARR so Sage doesn't interest me all that much, and the other Job was not announced. (April.) While I usually go with one of the new expansion's Jobs for the flavor of the month, unless it's interesting to me I'll probably just stick with the "tank in a DPS's skin" GNB. (Nicer queue times! Wonder what new actions we're gonna get.)

So, Danny Boy and Zenos are confirmed to be our main antagonists. The devs are aware of their reputations amongst players (love to hate for Danny Boy, general annoyance with Zenos and his obsession) but promise that at least Danny Boy will have more to him than what we've seen so far. I'm... not holding my breath on either, but Shadowbringers' MSQ was excellent so I'll wait and see where things go; even if neither have more complex characters than what we've seen so far, that doesn't mean the story is gonna be, y'know... bad.

Lahabrea reappearing in Pandemonium is... aside from the roundabout reference to II, kind of nice because while he didn't get much of a chance to shine in his limited screentime he was one of the last unsundered Ancients, so bringing him back is appreciated... if they do more with his character. Only half of his Ascian glyph is shown, though; has he split into two halves like Mateus in II and taken over both Pandemonium and Arubboth?! (Spoilers?!?)

While we will be going to Garlemald, what we were shown of it was nothing more than a smoking wreck, and I doubt that's fit to serve as the home base city (with market boards and such). Still betting on Sharlayan, further information notwithstanding.

And the 'voidsent' being fought in what looks like Floating City of Nym on fire are FFXI dark dragons, but those have already appeared as voidsent in ARR so no surprises there.

That particular one actually looks exactly like an HD rendering of one of the Terminus monsters from the Amaurot dungeon. I'm not entirely sure these are voidsent we're dealing with, Mhachi architecture or no.

[Zohar_Lahar]

That particular one actually looks exactly like an HD rendering of one of the Terminus monsters from the Amaurot dungeon. I'm not entirely sure these are voidsent we're dealing with, Mhachi architecture or no.

Perhaps the better question is: are the "voidsent" we've encountered since the beginning actually Terminus beasts that befell the Thirteenth?

[RyuDragnier]

That particular one actually looks exactly like an HD rendering of one of the Terminus monsters from the Amaurot dungeon. I'm not entirely sure these are voidsent we're dealing with, Mhachi architecture or no.

It brings to mind an important thought though...if you look at all the enemies we fight in the dungeon of Amaurot, they're all voidsent looking enemies. This bears the question, what is the difference between the Voidsent and the Terminus? And due to said difference, what does that mean really happened on the 13th to cause the Flood of Darkness? In fact, this brings into question exactly how the planet hadn't fallen into ruin prior to the Sound despite Amaurot existing for millenia? Was Amaurot having a member of its Council exist for the sheer purpose of protecting the planet and destroying anything that may hurt it preventing this from happening at all or delaying it? Or is there some outside factor that caused it all to begin with?

[MikkoAkure]

Supposedly the capitol was very large, it is possible the run down parts we see are on the outer edge, and the inner more advanced parts of it might be the endgame hub, similar to Eulmore, but i imagine with a rebuild over the expansion feature like Idylshire, plus of the new world map it is one of the two places with a more detailed emblem above it, plus it was revealed in a way similar to Eulmore after the Crystarium. But if it is just a zone and run down then that will be extremely disappointing, like Ala Mhigo all over again.

From the trailer and the concept art, it appears that Garlemald is completely destroyed. Zenos seems to be at the top of the tower overlooking a wide expanse of burning city, and an Imperial airship crashes. A giant creepy tower seems to be present in the Garlemald concept art too, connecting the trailer to the artwork.

[Zohar_Lahar]

From the trailer and the concept art, it appears that Garlemald is completely destroyed. Zenos seems to be at the top of the tower overlooking a wide expanse of burning city, and an Imperial airship crashes. A giant creepy tower seems to be present in the Garlemald concept art too, connecting the trailer to the artwork.

It was rather somber to see just how bad it was wrecked (kinda like seeing the abandoned Sharlayan city in Dravanian Hinterlands). It seems the Garlean Empire's parallels with Gestahl's Empire in FF6 even extended to Garlemald suffering Vector's fate in the World of Ruin, right down to Imperial Palace converted into a Kefka Tower knock-off.

[Vyrerus]

Hoooo boy! I love it when I'm right! Actually, this is the first time... it only took me 17 years to finally do accurate predictions for future FF online things... Guess I won't quit my day(night) job!

"Totally Original" FFII reference with FFIX architecture. Yeah, uh huh, definitely only to be found in FFXIV! But maybe they're going to make it largely original, because while they could reference all of those optional treasure box bosses from FFII or IDK what from FFIX, there really isn't a lot to work with to reference for bosses, so perhaps it feels completely original to the dev team?

I guess we all knew they couldn't resist the DRK --> PLD BIG CECIL ENERGY. The new job is Sage. Sage appears in FFIV three times. Tellah is a Sage. FuSoYa is a Sage. Golbez is also a Sage. None of them used crazy laser beam funnels, but I suspect this is a part of Sharlayan's forbidden knowledge, which they will now be sharing, to help save the world.

Radz-at-han being all Turkish and Lindblumy. I can dig it!

Garlemald... *Ghaleon in Dyne's flashback voice* I see only despair... despair... despair. Makes sense with what we've been told though!

I know how we're going there, and why the map is still clouded over between Thavnair and Islabard! We're going to take another FFII reference, The Jade Passage, in order to get to Garlemald. I can feel it in my very bones!

I am excited! And the Tower of Babil seems to feature in Endwalker's title card.

[EdwinLi]

Hoooo boy! I love it when I'm right! Actually, this is the first time... it only took me 17 years to finally do accurate predictions for future FF online things... Guess I won't quit my day(night) job!

"Totally Original" FFII reference with FFIX architecture. Yeah, uh huh, definitely only to be found in FFXIV! But maybe they're going to make it largely original, because while they could reference all of those optional treasure box bosses from FFII or IDK what from FFIX, there really isn't a lot to work with to reference for bosses, so perhaps it feels completely original to the dev team?

I guess we all knew they couldn't resist the DRK --> PLD BIG CECIL ENERGY. The new job is Sage. Sage appears in FFIV three times. Tellah is a Sage. FuSoYa is a Sage. Golbez is also a Sage. None of them used crazy laser beam funnels, but I suspect this is a part of Sharlayan's forbidden knowledge, which they will now be sharing, to help save the world.

Radz-at-han being all Turkish and Lindblumy. I can dig it!

Garlemald... *Ghaleon in Dyne's flashback voice* I see only despair... despair... despair. Makes sense with what we've been told though!

I know how we're going there, and why the map is still clouded over between Thavnair and Islabard! We're going to take another FFII reference, The Jade Passage, in order to get to Garlemald. I can feel it in my very bones!

I am excited! And the Tower of Babil seems to feature in Endwalker's title card.

It is a bit more than just a Cecil reference.

the WoL began his journey in 1.0 as a Gladiator and now he is finishing the story as a Paladin in 6.0 that he began back in 1.0. They even gone so far as to recreate the WoL original pose back in 1.0 when he was just a gladiator for Endwalker's art.

It is in a way going full circle to how WoL started his journey and ending his journey.

[Raziel_Zero]

For some reason that shape on the other side of the moon reminds me of a Zeromus artwork with that shape and horn-like line at the top. Probably just my wild imagination, but thought it's interesting enough to share.