8.0 speculation

[EdwinLi]

Going through what we seen in the trailer, it feels like Heavensward but probably reversed.

We even got the Heavensward crew being Alphinaud and Estinien.

I won't be surprised if the Sky Island civilization for this shard is basically a reverse Ishgard with the citizens being all Au Ra and they treat anyone not a Au Ra the same way Ishgard use to treat Dragons and people related to Dragons.

[Yuella]

Line in the trailer "We had no choice but flee to the sky". So the zone concept art we saw in the keynote are all above the sky. The 6th zone is probably the icy land below.

[Aneshda]

I don't know why but I have the feeling that the Old Woman is a Shard of Matoya.

[Ignatyus]

None of the new maps in 8.0 show snow, ice, or anything like that. So I have four theories:

1. We'll travel to the past on another shard (the 4th) to try and unify the stars (new information comes up and we decide to try), and that's the story of the entire expansion. Somehow, WE will cause the ice flood during the final acts and we'll need to reverse it (we'll have ice maps in dungeons and raids).

2. The same as above, but we travel to the past to prevent it from happening again.

3. The ice flood happened a long, long time ago because of the giants carrying seeds, and people have already returned to the lands below when things normalized. At some point, the giants threaten to return and cause everything to enter an ice age again, and we have to figure out how to prevent their return in the lands above as well as in the lands below.

4. It's all a grand conspiracy of deception to condition the people to worship false gods and trust in a theocratic system of government, similar to what happens in Heavensward.

I have other theories, like everyone else, but these seem to be the most solid so far. In any case, it seems that time travel will indeed occur, since the old woman likely met WoL in the distant past.

[Turnintino]

None of the new maps in 8.0 show snow, ice, or anything like that. So I have four theories:

The character narrating the teaser tells us they "had no choice but to flee to the skies," suggesting this ice flood mainly affected the Fourth's lower altitudes. Based only on what we know so far, I assume we'll be exploring mostly floating landmasses, à la Sea of Clouds and the Churning Mists, that the Fourth's peoples have long since escaped to.

[Cilia]

Gaius is just Vayne in Gabranth's armor. HW ends with a fight against Knights of the Round, Zenos is the Sephiroth expy (every trait except personality), Emet-Selch is just Zemus with better PR. There is nothing truly original in this game, the only difference is between references to more popular games which you might know and the less popular games which you wouldn't.

ETA: Anyway I've been obsessively combing over the trailer and I've noticed a couple things, what happened to the fourth feels like a second retread of the background of FFIII (specifically the DS version) whereas the Void got the 2D version of events where the land was simply flooded by darkness it seems the fourth has the freezing aspect introduced in the DS version. In both cases we see the inhabitants have taken to the skies. Also the mentions of the promised land do give me VII vibes. Also the portal Meteor and the HW boys falls out of is most definitely the opposite side of the portal we're entering in the 7.5 trailer. Finally, assuming the old lady is one too, this might be the only monoracial shard given every other shown character is an Au Ra. With that said in that way its kinda like Au Ra HW (fitting to have the crew minus Ysayle (she deserved better) there).

Respectfully, there's referencing something (Knights of the Round, not named as such, as the Act 2 climax boss in a plotline otherwise divorced from VII references) and then there's taking whole settings and plotlines for a remix (6.X's Void Arc, Dawntrail's second and third acts). Disregarding side content the game generally did not do as such prior to the Void Arc, and I am hoping they get back to more original plotlines. (Or at least as original as a franchise that's been around for nearly 40 years can be; we've got serious "Simpsons Did It" issues.)

Regarding the Legates specifically, up until the IVth Legion's Noah van Gabranth in Shadowbringers they all referenced an antagonist from the title corresponding to their numbered legion (Nael = Sephiroth; Gaius more or less original, visually borrows from Gabranth; Regula = General Leo Cristophe; Zenos = Vayne; Valens = Hojo). One could argue that Gabranth references Cecil insofar as he worked for a corrupt kingdom / empire he rebels against, but that's about it; and neither Vergilia nor Quintus reference their respective titles in any meaningful way (III and I, respectively).

Regarding what's been presented so far, it's very difficult to get a read on what we have; we don't have a name for anything, which would give away what they're basing things on (if heavily referencing a previous title, or just heavy Nordic influence). The sky islands with a dangerous surface world could be referencing III or perhaps XIII; there's clear Nordic influence, which brings to mind VII in addition to the mention of the "Promised Land" and the praying Auri girl (Aerith?); and the giant crystal brings to mind XVI. That said there's also quite a lot of Nordic myth at play - the "eternal winter" is likely referencing Fimbulvetr, there are giants roaming the land below that were quickly nicknamed "Jotunns" by the fanbase, the architecture is heavily Gothic, there's a serpent (likely Jormungandr) that features heavily in said architecture, and most notably (while it takes some careful pausing) the Auri man appears to have one glowing eye and the other missing, which is a likely nod to the mythological Odin (not the sword-wielding black knight he's known as in this franchise). So all in all there's a lot of different directions things are being pulled, but without the name of a single location we can't make a fair guess what the Fourth is based on (if anything more than clear Nordic myth, which is far from unreasonable given most cultures in the game world are heavily inspired by ones from the real world).

Regardless, it's not monoracial; even disregarding the storytelling woman being a Miqo'te, concept art shows a race of small anthropomorphic cats (likely using the Lalafell rigging).

So, yeah, based on what's been shown and announced I'm leaning towards "VII with more Nordic influence."

[Ignatyus]

The character narrating the teaser tells us they "had no choice but to flee to the skies," suggesting this ice flood mainly affected the Fourth's lower altitudes. Based only on what we know so far, I assume we'll be exploring mostly floating landmasses, à la Sea of Clouds and the Churning Mists, that the Fourth's peoples have long since escaped to.

Initially I thought of that, but then I saw that we'll have zones with seas and Viking ships, and underground zones (?). That's why I think that the so-called "Promised Lands" are actually the lands above that were abandoned at some point and we only explored the lands below (before or after the frost era).

[Cleretic]

I thought it was fairly clear that we're dealing with a Sea of Clouds situation, where people are mostly living on floating islands and the ground is an inhospitable wasteland that we're probably only going to go to for dungeons.

Also, my eyeballing puts the inspiration as much closer to looking like FFX or FFXIII than VII. There's not really anything that rings as VII at all, so I have no idea where anyone's getting that, but some of the creatures look a decent amount like fal'cie, and there were a couple locations that give me FFX Temple vibes (but granted, FFX's temples are all wildly different on the outside so it's hard to describe why), as well as areas that reminded me of Besaid from X and Cocoon from XIII. There's also a kinda hard thing to feel out or quite feel like I'm right about, but the landscapes having a lot of vertical eye-catchers makes me feel more like X and XIII; those are the only Final Fantasies that really went hard on pointing the camera up for big visual moments.

They're obviously going for something original, though. Trying to chart anything based on 'oh this person's Aerith' is just going to lead you sailing off a waterfall at this stage.

[Turnintino]

I thought it was fairly clear that we're dealing with a Sea of Clouds situation, where people are mostly living on floating islands and the ground is an inhospitable wasteland that we're probably only going to go to for dungeons.

I had the same assumptions about most of the dungeon previews.

There's not really anything that rings as VII at all, so I have no idea where anyone's getting that[...].

Apart from what Cilia mentioned, I think this concept art has also contributed:



Which has been structurally compared to Midgar:



All surface level stuff at the moment, but I wouldn't write it off at this point. Regardless, I'm hoping they restrain themselves in referencing whatever it is they inevitably end up referencing lol.

[Cleretic]

Apart from what Cilia mentioned, I think this concept art has also contributed:

While I do see it, that's one that I actually thought looked like an FFX temple. Nothing in specific (although I could make a thin case for the Remiem Temple or Zanarkand Dome), it just had the same air to me of that sort of centralized but distanced location.

I think it's interesting that my read on that changes entirely based on presumed scale, though. There's no clear sign of how big this place is; I was picturing this being roughly the size of a cathedral, but it could be much larger.