Did the Encyclopedia Eorzea reveal Ivalice's fate (and other Ivalice discussion)?

[Eyvind]

Spoilers for the Ivalice games, obviously.

With the announcement of the Return to Ivalice, all of us old Ivalice geeks are talking about meeting Ramza or Vaan and Ashe in-game. I think there are a few old fans of that cult classic Vagrant Story holding out for Ashley Riot.

Me, I'm expecting another World of Darkness, or at least Mhach, thanks to the Encyclopedia Eorzea.

I cannot quote it in full due to space restrictions, but on page 300, under Cuchulainn's entry, it talks about a theory of the creation of the Void. What it describes seems to be a slightly muddled version of how Lucavi auracite works in FF Tactics.

And given that it's Cuchulainn we're talking about - the first lucavi we meet in that game - it seems to suggest that sometime after the War of the Lions, the espers/lucavi destroyed the world and plunged it into darkness by possessing people through auracite.

What do you think? Am I way off? What do you expect to see in Return to Ivalice?

[Eyvind]

Also, to facilitate discussion and because it comes up every time Ivalice is discussed, here is a timeline of Ivalice, or at least the closest anyone can come given how confused information is in-game and between games.

(The order of the games in internal chronology is:

FF12 (706 Old Valendian)
Revenant Wings (a year or two later)
FF Tactics (more than 1800 years later, after a world-shaking cataclysm)
Vagrant Story (400 years after Tactics, if canon)

No one can agree if the two "magical books" games (Tactics Advance and Grimoire of the Rift) count, or if the realistic town where they start is part of a modern Ivalice or another world.

[Balipu]

Hi there.
Character limit no longer applies when you edit a post. You can make it as long as you want.

As for Ivalice: this might not be THE Ivalice. Same as how the Doma Yugiri is from is not the same as the Doma we saw in Final Fantasy VI or the Crystal Tower being different from the Final Fantasy III Crystal Tower, despite all the nods.

There are hints that there may be an Ivalice in Othard, but that's not the same as THE Ivalice we saw so far. Of course we could viist the real Ivalice, but that would require going inside the Rift. The devs said over and over again that VIX and XII have separate settings. All the nods we have had to Ivalice were...well nods.

[Yasuhiro]

I always thought that the "Return to Ivalice" title was really specific.
Did they ever do anything like this for Crystal Tower? Cause the title might be to generate hype but I think it might be something literal.

Hi.
All the nods we have had to Ivalice were...well nods.

And most of the bestiary too, Construct 8, Aevis, Miriam Facer, etc.

[Eyvind]

Spoilers for FF14 MSQ, Kingdom Hearts, and FF3 follow...
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True enough, though I was thinking how it might fit in with events at the end of the current storyline in FF14, where we have the Warriors of Darkness invade our world because theirs was flooded with light, and an indication that it might be possible to save them.

They keep telling us that one world was flooded with darkness. If that world is Ivalice, or a close analogue (a close enough analogue to bring the original writer out of retirement) then maybe we can help that world...? In other SE games (Kingdom Hearts especially, but also FF3) when a world gets flooded with darkness, it does not die but go into a kind of stasis. Folks living in it wake up when freed. That's how I read the description of a "world flooded with light" as well - blank, unchanging perfection, a stasis.

Doing so would probably put a wrench in Ascian plans, and eliminate a staging point for Voidsent into Eorzea.

[Balipu]

Well we did see how the Void looked when we did World of Darkness, and it really didn't look like Ivalice. The thirteenth shard is pretty much dead. We either go to Othard, or the Rift. Both choices have merit. There is no point in naming places after cities in Ivalice if we go to a different Ivalice later. However the Omega Raid will likely involve the Rift so it would make sense to have a thematic connection between the two.

[Eyvind]

My guess is the rift. As for the naming conventions, I always assumed that the names and references to other Final Fantasies - in so much as there is a Watsonian, in-universe explanation beyond catering to the nostalgia of the fandom - was because the shards are supposed to be reflections of the same source. Every once in awhile, they catch the same image in their distorted reflection (Cids, airships, chocobos, spikey hair...).

I actually realize I was taking it for granted that the shards were other FF worlds.

In any event, I think "Return to Ivalice" suggests the one we know. I also noticed the zodiac symbols surrounding the sword in the image. Those don't have any real resonance in Eorzea, but they are huge in Ivalice, what with every Esper/Lucavi/Scion/primal/demon tied to one.

[Balipu]

I actually realize I was taking it for granted that the shards were other FF worlds.
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That's where you erred. You should be taking the opposite for granted. All the outsiders like Gilgamesh, Lightning, Shantotto and Iroha came to Eorzea via the Rift which is around the whole setting that includes the source the thirteen reflection, and the aetheric sea.

The reflections should be more or less copies of Hydaelin (the planet, not the crystal). The Warriors of Darkness came from the first shard and look like complettely normal Eorzean Adventurers, just with slightly different job names. That's the sort of difference you should imagine. Not completely different settings.

[Berethos]

The reflections should be more or less copies of Hydaelin (the planet, not the crystal).

Yep...they began as reflections of the Source Hydaelyn, which is the world our characters inhabit, though time has certainly changed some aspects.

Also worth noting that there's only four remaining we can visit/learn that we haven't seen or know about already - the 13th shard we visit when we go to the World of Darkness, the 1st we know is home to the Warriors of Darkness. Seven of the others have already been destroyed and absorbed into the Source...leaving four we know nothing about.

One of those could be the 14 version of Ivalice (but not THE Ivalice), or it could be a region on Hydaelyn that shares a name and a lot of themes...or a slim chance it's the original Ivalice we visit by way of the Rift.

The current precedent indicates it will be one of the first two. The chance of it being the third is there but small, and it would be the first time two different worlds were connected in such an overt manner in the franchise.

Regarding Cuchulainn, it's implied that he may have been a Warrior of Light from the 13th Shard warped by the use of auracite (the WoL is the less certain of the two implications and I have reasons why I don't think that part is true) - he's at least a warrior of some renown from that world and so despite sharing a name he's different from the Ivalice counterpart.

[Balipu]

Yes we never had more than one setting in one game. Unless you consider the rift a separate setting because in that case V and Dissidia did just that. Koji did say that we have places named Dalmasca and Rabanastre in Othard, so Ivalice might be a region there much like Aldenard has Dravania, Coerthas, The Black Shroud, Thanalan and Gyr Abania. Then again Rabanastre is supposed to be a city and Dalmasca a kingdom. Maybe Ivalice is a name like Eorzea. Yes, that could work.
Eorzea: Ivalice
Aldenard: Othard
Coerthas: Dalmasca
Ishgard: Rabanastre