Quote Originally Posted by Yuella View Post
Endwalker really should've been split into two expansions. Part 1 deals with Garlemald featuring Corvos and other Garlean provinces. Then part 2 deals with Endwalker proper.
As a number of you probably know (but I love as a fact but I'll always share it), this was the initial plan; we don't know much about that initial plan, except that the level 90 trial was Anima; I think Corvos/Locus Amoenus is a fair guess for another zone, but beyond that it gets really murky. (And also, Locus Amoenus is supposed to resemble Labyrinthos, which I wouldn't really call Mediterranean, but I don't know climates.) Anima even existing in that plan at least says that Garlemald still would've been in the state we found it, though.

I think it was the right move to combine them. I don't really think that the Ilsabard expansion would've had the potential to be more than a Stormblood retread of us walking through nations and reiterating a liberation story every time, and just speaking personally I don't see much excitement in trudging through more Imperial bases; frankly I was sick of the aesthetic after Stormblood, and even now I'm still not really hankering for more of it. Plus, presuming the story was essentially a longer version of what we got, there's not really a good expansion breakpoint; Anima might be the best one, but it'd really leave you hanging in a really difficult way, I've got no idea how you make those patches any good.

Endwalker might've been rushed by trying to fit two expansions into one, but it at least wields that rush. It's telling a story that makes sense being frantic and without much room to breathe; I would've liked more time in these places, but I don't feel like the story was incomplete by not telling it. ...except the story of the excaped slaves, that one was short-changed and deserves more space, but that's a problem with smaller solutions than 'whole expansion'.