February 5th Announcement, Realistic Expectations Thread

[Aniya_Estlihn]

- a short, ~6 sec trailer with the expansion name reveal. Since they're not going to go in depth with the location of the new expansion in order to avoid spoiling 5.5, the trailer will be pretty vague.

I think this angle is a bit strange. There is almost undeniable proof that we're going to Garlemald, so they could easily reveal that and then be like "Find out why we're headed there in 5.5!" Which is one of the things they actually did for 4.0's first fanfest. As we knew we immediately knew were going to Gyr Abania/Ala Mhigo, but we didn't know exactly how or why until 3.5. In fact they said we'd have to wait until 3.5 to find out exactly why we were going there, but we knew from the start it was Gyr Abania due to the MSQ and the general direction of the story.

In fact, the narrative is currently pushing towards Garlemald rather blatantly—the towers are Garlean, Fandaniel says Zenos will wait for us in the midst of the chaos. As Lyse put it "Huge swathes of the episode have been reduced to rubble", which is only natural in a country—that has too many military legions that operate separately and all have interests in controlling the throne—under the grips of a civil war... like? Is that not obvious enough? It sounds chaotic enough.

So it's pretty easy to assume we're going to Garlemald as the build up for it has been stirring since late 4.X and Shadowbringers only acted as a small diversion from it. There's no reason to go anywhere else now that we know both Zenos and the only remaining Ascian who poses a threat are working together. And while they could throw a curveball and subvert expectations, I think that'll be in the reasoning for us going to Garlemald, rather than a question if if we are or aren't.