Please don't just cut off Garlean Empire trope or take too long with it.

[EdwinLi]

It would have to be some place away from the existing zone though like with Doma.

Sidequests, mob placement, and hunts depend on the part of Garlemald we have access to remaining a smoking ruin filled with mobs.

I just wish completing the role capstone quest would finally shut off the evil aura on the Tower of Babil or better yet make it collapse.

I doubt they will remove it since they established it is now permanently part of the area and acting as the local Space Teleporter to the moon. However, they may eventually learn how to redesign the thing to make it less scary looking in the distant future that FF14 will never reach.

It may even become a tourist attraction in the distant future for New Garlemald.

[PercibelTheren]

I'd really like a Garlean Restoration crafter/gatherer thingy. The civillians of Garlemald need help. I really wish the whole region wasn't just a footnote in Endwalker.

[Narnio]

A part of me does yearn for the cut expansion idea Square Enix had for them. While condensing the next two expansions into one was a decent idea, I can't help but long for the idea of travelling through all the provinces from the South all the way up to the homeland, seeing how the war has affected the people and what life was like in magitek-prevalent nations. Travelling to Werlyt for the first time in Shadowbringers and seeing just how different everything felt, along with the somber music, felt like a glorious teaser into what we could have gotten.

The further the map zooms out, the more the clouds over Ilsabard become prevalent since they're essentially right in the center of the world space. Hopefully the expansion to explore that region comes sooner rather than later.

[Yuella]

I wonder what a 6.0 Ilsabard expansion would look like.

- The moon could be the sixth area with Zodiark being the final boss. Or they could have Zenos/Fandaniel be the 6.0 boss and Zodiark be the 6.3 boss.
- Another idea could be they do the Golbez storyline for 6.1-6.3, making Zodiark be the 6.0 boss and Zeromus be the 6.3 boss.
- Anima would be the second trial with Tower of Babil being the level 89 dungeon.
- No Old Sharlayan. A Garlemald city friendly to the alliance would be the second city.
- Corvos would certainly be an area. Maybe Nhalmasque and Landis too.

7.0 could feature an expanded unsundered world, maybe even the original Amaurot as the second city with Old Sharlayan.

[Cleretic]

The struggle with trying to figure out what Theoretical Split Endwalker would've looked like is always the 6.x stretch. What do you have in that slot, that makes sense for being the lower-pressure, long-term 'holding pattern' story for the couple years between 6.0 and 7.0?

We've been told that the final trail of Theoretical Endwalker Expansion would've been Anima; that makes sense, he's definitely the 'big scary final boss' of the Garlemald story, but... well, what do you do in the patch stories? Is Zodiark the 6.3 trial and has to somehow get moved off the moon? Do we just go off and do an entirely different thing in Corvos or something, while the axe of 'Zenos and Fandaniel are like five minutes away from taking Zodiark' hangs over us for several years?

Instead shifting the 'cutting point' slightly later and making Zodiark the final trial theoretically makes more sense on the structural level: there's less unknowns here, I know what we'd do with the 6.x story, where we'd pick up afterwards... but the problem there is that all the things that fill those slots are bad at filling those slots. The Loporrits are theoretically perfect for the falling action, 'now what happens' vibe of the .x storylines, but that would be the worst thing to leave us on for an extended period, you'd never be able to escape the feeling of 'we should be doing something else' while the Loporrits' whimsical strangeness and mystery just wouldn't be able to hold up for that long.

It also screws over Thavnair and Sharlayan, which I think do well in Endwalker chiefly because they actually do, in different ways, bridge the gap between 'the Garlemald/Telophoroi story' and 'the End of Days' story, making sure they don't stand in complete isolation. You'd have to pick where either of them goes, while knowing that either way you lose something really strong:

• If Thavnair is in the Garlemald expansion, you lose the events around Vanaspati where they get hit by the End of Days; if you leave them for the End of Days, then you miss seeing them in the events around the Tower of Babil where we see them in uncertain times but still as a generally peaceful, friendly lot. I think Thavnair needs both, because it's our window into how hard the End of Days hits and how harrowing it truly is, because we already know these people.
• If Sharlayan is in the Garlemald expansion, you miss their heroic turn in the Labyrinthos revisit; if they're only in the End of Days expansion, you lose the paranoia and intrigue of 'they're working on something but refuse to tell anyone what'. I think Sharlayan needs both, too, because only having one of those Sharlayan/Labyrinthos visits leaves them as a one-dimensional figure as far as the world goes.

While I get the curiosity about 'what would these split expansions have been like', I actually can't imagine them being better than what we got in terms of being a cohesive, compelling, well-paced story. Sure, the result feels a bit like it's rushing at times, but that at least feels intentional, like it recognizes the ticking clock you're under.

[Lyth]

A 5.x Northern Ilsabard expansion ending on a fight with Zodiark could have worked as a natural extension to Stormblood. It wouldn't have worked out very well after Emet-Selch showed up to take credit for everything.

You could drag Endwalker out across two expansions if you really wanted to if the first 'half' ended on Zodiark, but it would require a lot of filler. I think people who had built themselves up with false hopes of an Archadia-style city replete with political intrigue would have still been disappointed either way, however. There's much more potential scope for that in Southern Ilsabard with Corvos.