Hints of whats to come in 7.0

[MikkoAkure]

1. A mysterious client asking for the Scions aid based on what Thancred tells to Urianger during the Atherfont section

An interesting thing about this is that it was mentioned the client was asking for Archons specifically, due to their neutrality.

That means whoever the client is, they are at least loosely connected to, affected by, or aware of Eorzean politics. Or they are aware of the Scions’ false retirement and they are trying to get in touch while not raising any eyebrows.

That, plus Erenville’s mention of a homecoming, would initially make me think of the blank spots of Ilsabard and Western Othard. We still have mysteries there like the flying whale, floating islands, and the giant.

The New World does have connections to Limsa Lominsa since they’re their first and seemingly only connection to the 3 great continents. Limsa/La Noscea has a sizable population of New World immigrants too.

Meracydia has no connections in ARR canon. In 1.0 they had trade with Limsa Lominsa but I haven’t seen that come up since. But I’m also biased against Meracydia since I live in a desert IRL and feel like we’ve had enough of that aesthetic in ARR, SB, and ShB.

[SaitoHikari]

Actually there is one important thing about it...it's what led Fran to actually talking to the Eorzean Alliance, and likely learning about the Scions themselves. Working with us would also get her to trust us. So I could see them making it mandatory...plus that helps brings up the player skill level since Ivalice ain't exactly easy for a lot of players.

Bits of Dalmasca show up in the Bozja storyline as Valnain is the IVth legion’s capital and it appears in cutscenes. The city is infamously liberated off-screen in the Field Records.

Considering the ruined state of Rabanastre and Valnain being a Garlean stronghold in another side story, if both Ivalice and Bozja are skipped, there wouldn’t really anywhere for us to go in a potential expansion there and the state of the 2 biggest cities in the country would have to be danced around if you haven’t done them yet.

Hmm. Yeah, it would be really messy if we actually did go to Dalmasca without completing both Ivalice or Bozja. Though who even knows anymore, the writers may just decide that they're not going to bother with forcing people to go through previous side content and assume everyone did it already.

That, plus Erenville’s mention of a homecoming, would initially make me think of the blank spots of Ilsabard and Western Othard. We still have mysteries there like the flying whale, floating islands, and the giant.

It's also worth noting that the stuff about Erenville's homecoming is a voiced line. It has major significance, and isn't throwaway optional dialogue you could get by talking to him outside of a cutscene.

Going to Southern Islabard/Western Othard would give the opportunity for the devs to do the following:

- Introduce more Viera lore, to make them less of a fanservice race. More Horathgar lore too.
- Fully reveal the map of the Three Great Continents
- Explore Doma's relationship with the surrounding nations. Remember that Hien was setting up an alliance of Othardian nations towards the end of the Stormblood patch series, and we saw representatives from Nagaxia and Dalmasca
- Tie up the loose ends with the Ivalice/Bozja arcs
- Tie up all the loose ends with the Garelmald arc, of which it's rather widely known at this point that the Garlemald arc being as rushed/off-screened as it did left a sour taste in a significant portion of the community

Unless something major happened off-screen across the seas that would have resulted in an unknown faction sending someone to the Three Great Continents for help (with said representative somehow learning about very specific members of the Scions with very specific qualities such as political neutrality to send those invitations to them), and unless Erenville came from some unknown Viera enclave across the seas rather than Nagaxia, it's far more likely those missives came from someone in Corvos/Dalmasca/Nagaxia instead.

I can't see us just going across the seas to Mercydia or the New World so soon, while leaving all of the above on the table. They could always revisit all of this after we head overseas, but it would be extremely difficult. The reception to returning to a 'past arc' area in a post across-the-seas expansion climate would be very poor ('why are we wasting time dealing with old shit when we have all this new stuff right here'). Yoshi-P absolutely isn't going to do Matsuno dirty by potentially shoving all of this into Criterion Dungeon-level side content either.

Plus, going to Corvos/Dalmasca/Nagaxia first also gives the overseas content time to cook in the oven in regards to writing and world design, especially now that we likely have writers returning from XVI development.

Well, we probably won't need to wait until 6.5 to figure out where the next expansion is headed. We'll likely find out where we are going in 2 months, when NA fanfest happens.