This is my premonition on how it will all go down.

1.23 will add the final battle against one of those garlean guys. (Forgot their high ranked title). We'll end up beating him but not necesseraily stop his plans, thus causing Dalamud to still keep falling down. To stop Dalamud, the grand companies and Cid make up some plan to make an all out assault against something that will prevent or at least cause the point of impact to happen in a safe zone(Possible cliffhanger at the end of 1.23). I'm taking this hint from that cgi cutscene screenshot. Where it looks like a Warrior is fighting in what I presume is the final large battle. All of our characters will start up in this conflict(2.0 intro). Perhaps this will be the actual tutorial zone. Large scale battle, good way to showcase FFXIV to the new players and a tutorial guiding you through it and fighting some of the garlean soldiers.

The battle will end up in some sort of victory, ending in
- Dalamud remaining suspended in the air( Not expecting this to be honest)
- Dalamud crashing somewhere safely (my bets are on this. I'll go even as far as to say that it will be suspended in the air by something and in possesion of the garleans. Which in turn will become a future dungeon)
- Dalamud is completely destroyed and we see nothing of it anymore except its influence on the world (and maybe some debris)

And we fast forward months/years forward. Somehow ending in our city of choice. Perhaps waking from a dream or a reminescence of the battle (Or perhaps all echo).


Like I said, personal premonition. I'm probably going to be way off but I love speculating.