Wheres the originality? *possiblr spoilers*

[iWaRTuRTLeS]

Toau inspiration.
Horizon zero dawn/forbidden west mixed with Tron in zone 5 with those regulators.
Wuk lamat and erenville remind me of Beerus and Whis from DBZ.
Red dead redemption in zone 4.

"Golden city" when they found it, reminded me of Assassins Creed typical endings

Square Enix losing their ways, but then again its year 10 when most mmos start to die. Time to think of the end of days because this isnt WoW and the creative talents arnt the same.

[Jeeqbit]

They play a lot of other games to get inspiration, but also mix that with inspiration from other FF games and various mythologies and history.

So it's pretty obvious the cyberpunk theme going on for example and they even admitted that in one of the keynotes.

[TDawnstar]

Square Enix losing their ways, but then again its year 10 when most mmos start to die. Time to think of the end of days because this isnt WoW and the creative talents arnt the same.

While I share some of your worries about the future of FFXIV, putting "WoW" and "creative talents" in the same sentence may be a bit far-fetched. They are also very very good at shooting themselves in the foot recently.
I'm still hoping SE will draw some conclusions from Dawntrail release, though...

[OgruMogru]

Getting a lot of "Boss Baby" vibes from this....