WMG / Final Fantasy XIV

Warning: Spoilers Off applies to this page. There will be unmarked spoilers below.

Folders sorted by the rough estimate of in what era of the game the WMG were written.

Heavensward

Eventually a new set of Primals will emerge:The Warriors of Light.

Spoilers for Heavensward, just a heads up. We know from Good King Moggle Mog XII, Shiva, and Enkidu that anyone can be summoned in Primal form so long as there is enough belief and crystals. Then in Heavensward we learn that all Primals are created from the summoner's own imagination and are not the genuine article, removing further restrictions. Eventually, a misguided group are going to learn the arts of summoning from the Ascians, and will use them to turn themselves into the Warriors of Light, just as Iceheart became Shiva or the Archbishop became King Thordan. The template for these Primals is already present, belief. Every survivor of the Calamity remembers their saviors as the Warriors of Light, whom they can only remember as silhouetted behind a blinding light. Faceless divine figures. The Player Character/Warrior of Light will actually help this come to pass, since their heroics has only strengthened everyone's faith behind the title Warrior of Light.

• This would be a Mirror Match with the player party, as well.
• Confirmed: While not exactly in the context suggested here. We do fight the Dissidia Warrior of Light. A primal that Elidibus takes the form of.

Ilberd will transform into a primal version of Rhalgr.

Given what he says when you encounter him in Heavensward, he is one Ascian meeting away from learning how to use himself as a catalyst to summon a primal. He's even shown signs of reaching the Despair Event Horizon. When he learns of this, he'll transform into Rhalgr in a desperate attempt to reclaim Ala Mhigo from Garlemald.

• Plausible. We've already seen the Ala Mhigan Refugees try pulling this once early in 2.0 A Realm Reborn main story. Another theory being, he may become one of the Warriors of Darkness. And a third, he may instead try to claim Omega Weapon for himself.
• Another sign of this being plausible, 3.4 involves the Griffon appearing and starting a new faction of the Ala Mhigo Resistance. Turns out the Griffon IS working with Elidibus, and receives a "gift" in the form of Nidhogg's frozen eyes recovered from the chasm below the Steps of Faith. Apparently this is because Elidibus finds that the Griffon holds more grief, anger, and rage than anyone else he considered giving the eyes to. Now, who do we know among the Ala Mhigan resistance members that happen to have those thing to the point they don't consider the consequences of their actions or who they choose to work with?
• Turns out that this one is mostly true. 3.5 does indeed confirm that Ilberd is the Griffon who received Nidhogg's eyes and the knowledge of a Primal summoning technique that uses the mass death, lingering anger, and resentment, including his own death and rage, that permeates a battlefield to create a Calamity-level Primal.

Raubahn will receive an Auto-Mail prosthetic arm from the Garlond Ironworks.

Don't see why they couldn't. Between Cid's extensive knowledge and development of Magitek, and it's probably something the Allegans could have created, so you have two sources of information right there on how to make one.

• Maybe they'll do him one better and make his arm a gun instead.
  • And if Raubahn's still around by version 7.0... AVALANCHE TIME!!
• A Full Metal Alchemist collab. Square Enix does own the rights.
• Jossed: It doesn't seem Raubahn will ever replace his missing arm.

Gilgamesh will become influenced by the Odin primal

Given how the primal works in this game as well as Gilgamesh's history with the summon and his weapon, as well as the hint that Greg will appear after the Battle in the Big Keep.

Shiva, Phoenix and The Knights are not the first cases of a human becoming a Primal. The Warrior of Light is.

Certain points of the story paint the Player Character as a supernatural force. Not only are they immune to being brainwashed by the primals, they are not only able to defeat them, they also defeat Bahamut and some of his siblings as well. When the Warriors of Light became gifted with the Echo, they were set on a path that that would end with them being Primals, or at the very least wind up having to face Evil Knockoffs of themselves.

• Jossed. Emet-Selch reveals during Shadowbringers that Hydaelyn and Zodiark are the Eldest and most powerful of Primals summoned by the Ascians in Ancient times via willing self-sacrifice of their summoners. Endwalker then gives us the full, horrifying story: The Eldest were created out of the lead Ascian invokers, who become the hearts of each Primal: Elidibus for Zodiark, and Venat for Hydaelyn. Further complicating matters is that the Elidibus that challenges the Scions is a Primal version of himself summoned by the Convocation to help calm the fear and concerns that was spreading between the Pro- and Anti-Zodiark factions.

The final boss of the Alexander raid series will be Alexander

Like how Bahamut was the final boss of the Binding Coil of Bahamut raids, we will eventually fight :Alexander, though a smaller one, possibly piloted by Quickthinx or maybe even Mide.

• or perhaps Mide's loved one, who was revealed in the Midas segment to be trapped within Alexander's main core. Or perhaps a fusion of his essence and Alexanders fought in the core similar to how Bahamut Prime was.
• Seemingly confirmed through 3.4's patch trailer.
• Confirmed: The final boss is Alexander Prime. Alexanderception.

Alexander twisted Mide's loved one into Faust

He vanished into Alexander's core in the original Alexander summoning. It's entirely possible that the final form of the recurring mini-boss, Faust, will be revealed to be a tempered version of him.

• Jossed: He's a spirit within Alexander's core consciousness.

Alexander twisted Mide's loved one into the Ark Primal

Alternatively, Alexander might have converted him into another Primal, much like in the Binding Coils. In this case, Ark would be the most likely candidate due to it's similarities to Alexander.

• Jossed.

Other Beast Tribe Primals will include:

• Gigants
  • Madiun - His original design was based on the design of the gigas' sprites.
  • Golem - Though there are some basic enemy golems, having some variation of the Golem summon would be fitting for the Gigants.
• Mamol Ja
  • Shemhazai - Stretching it a little, but the Mamool Ja were introduced in FF XI with a special affinity for binding creatures' souls to use Blue Magic. Shemhazai's "element" in FF XII was related to souls.
• Qiqirn
  • Yojimbo - A mercenary for hire seems fitting for a race of hoarders and thieves. And since the other business oriented race already has Alexander.
    • Jossed: He appears as a regular mercenary for hire in the Kugane Castle dungeon, as the final boss.
• Tonberries
  • Anima - A summon mostly associated with rage and tragic suffering. The two primary traits of XIV's breed of Tonberries.
  • Jossed: Anima has been confirmed as a trial for 6.0. Anima is revealed to be created by Zenos and Fandaniel out of the dead Garlean Emperor, Varis. On top of that, the Scholar storyline shows that the Tonberries are not only largely restored to sanity, but by level 80 have a potential cure for their condition.
• Those Lalafell bandits from Mor Dhona will actually summon Valefor for real at some point.
• Cactuar
  • Gigantuar - It will be explained that Cactuar are not particularly imaginative and thus their primal is really just a big Cactuar with a mustache.
• Alexander will create a primal version of Ark as a guardian.
  • Confirmed somewhat: Alexander's final guardian is Cruise Chaser, who is basically a carbon copy of Ark in appearance, animations, and attacks. However the being in question isn't a Primal, but rather a mechanical guardian blessed by a Primal.

There's some kind of relationship or connection between Brayflox Alltalks and Quickthinx Allthoughts

The Wind-up Goblin minion flavour text implies that Brayflox was once a member of the Illuminati and now they want her dead and the fact both of them have the All~ prefix on their last names and we know don't the entire goblin naming convention could imply they have some kind of connection like father and daughter or something. Otherwise, if that isn't true then Quickthinx is 'him' who Mide doesn't shut up about.

• That bit about Mide was jossed as of the Midas segment as the 'him' was revealed to be her old master who was trapped in Alexander's core.

The Garleans will eventually summon a primal of their own.

Given all their research and interest in ancient Allag's methods to imprison and control Eikons, this may peak at them attempting to summon and take control over their own Primal version of Garland or Chaos (whom the empire was named after).

• While Chaos is Jossed due to showing up in Omega, considering what happened at the end of 5.4, this might be more likely than you think...

• Zig-zagged in Endwalker. Fandaniel uses Varis' dismembered corpse to summon Anima to enthrall not nearly the entire populace of Garlemald but anyone without protection who wander too close to the the towers (which are powered by pieces of the emperor's corpse).

Yda is a pureblooded Garlean

Yda's most prominent article of clothing is her visor-turban. When it is shattered in 2.55, we get a very brief shot of her bright green eyes. This and her bleach-blonde hair are shared by other pureblooded Garleans, Nero and Lucia. Additionally, when shown in the 3.1 cutscene, while they clearly show Papalymo's face, the angles go out of their way to avoid showing Yda's full face. Despite not being a Highlander, Yda has an obsession with the liberation of Ala Mhigo.

• Alternately: Yda is a pureblooded Ala Mhigan who is trying to recover her homeland. Serving as the Good Counterpart to Ilberd (Both obsessed with liberating Ala Mhigo).
• The second theory is correct - Yda is native to Ala Mhigo and previously had dealings with the Resistance.

There will be a Halone primal

We now have a group of fanatical believers worshiping a goddess aspected to ice (an element associated with stillness, reflecting how they yearn for things to go back to the way things were before the truth of the Dragonsong War is revealed) all they need now are some crystals and maybe some Ascian interference and presto, the first of the twelve is made flesh (sort of).

• It's possible that this may be the boss of the Snowcloak HM dungeon that will likely arrive in 3.4, as an interesting inversion of the original where the aim was to summon Saint Shiva, Halone's enemy.

Best tribe quests of Heavensward

• Vanu Vanu
  • Confirmed by the Gundu Tribe.
• Gnath
  • Confirmed by the Vath/Nonmind tribe.
• Moogles of Moghome
  • Confirmed by 3.3's announcement of a joint Moogle/Dragon beast quest series.
• Dragons of Anyx Trine
  • See Moogles
• Goblins of Idyllshire
  • Jossed by Word of God who states that Goblins will not be a beast tribe the players can interact with.

If/when Final Fantasy XI goes offline, its cast will become antagonists in Eorzea

Shantotto already dropped by and could probably return at will one day; Iroha is already stuck in Eorze and her story was all about dealing with the possibility of Vana'diel being lost forever and preventing that at all costs (XI and XIV combat are too different for her to become a samurai tutor); not to mention many elements and species from XI made it to XIV.

You think Ala Mihgans are pissed off with their exile? Shantotto has been compared to the Calamity, you want to piss her off?...

If what were once thought to be the representatives of the XIV player characters in XIV turned out to be antagonists, what's to stop FF worlds from turning on another, if Altana and Hydaelyn cannot find a way to allow both their worlds to exist in full?

The Final Boss of the entire FFXIV storyline will be Zodiark.

Eventually, the Ascian's long term plan will succeed, and Hydaelyn will have exhausted all of her strength to combat the threat. As the planet dies, the heroes reach their Darkest Hour trying to figure out what to do. Hydaelyn speaks, and everyone can hear it. To save her and by extension the world, they must strike down Zodiark and exhaust his aether so that Hydaelyn can usurp him as he had usurped her, and she sacrifices what she has left of her aether to both the Warriors of Light and Midgardsormr. Midgardsormr, enraged at the Ascians for killing his offspring along with everything else, takes his fully manifested form once again and ferries the Warriors in the vacuum of space as the planet is erased. From this vantage point, the players see a great blue mist of aether where the planet once was, only for it to turn dark as it condenses and takes the form of Zodiark. The reborn god then declares that it will kill the wyrm and its charges, "snuffing out the last of Hydaelyn's light".

The Trial takes place along Midgardsormr's giant back as Zodiark flies about all around you in space. During the fight, Sormr will lash out at Zodiark himself but will be weakened by the Ascians fighting for their god. The party has to periodically wipe out Ascian adds to keep Midgardsormr from being distracted so he can fight Zodiark properly. Like the other bosses, Zodiark will have his own One-Hit Kill, Final Eclipse, where his wings will grow into blazing trails and space will shatter into a white void. Midgardsormr needs to be free of Ascian interference so that he can call on his and Hydaelyn's strength to protect the party from this.

• Jossed: Zodiark is not the final boss. He is in fact, the first trial boss of Endwalker, and his defeat only makes things worse.

Minfilia is Not Quite Dead

After the Word of the Mother sends the Warrior of Light back to the "aetherial shore," she almost sounds as if she is speaking in the third person and referring to sending multiple people back. She could have released Minfilia as well.

• Iceheart will also be revealed to survive in the same way - she didn't disperse into aether when she fought off the Garlean dreadnaught... Hydaelyn just pulled her into the aetherial sea, too.

• More or less confirmed! At least with Minfilia. She is still the Word of the Mother, but she decided to go to the First world, where the Warriors of Darkness are from, to absorb their excess Light and save their world. There's still a possibility she could return, however...
• Ultimately Jossed: In Shadowbringers Minfilia becomes akin to an Ascian, able to pass on her power to a reincarnation on that world, but she ultimately passes on all her power to Ryne, her third incarnation.

Unukalhai will be the main villain of the Warring Triad sidequests

Given his secretive nature, his intimate knowledge of the Triad, the established tension between him and the Garlean commander, his desire to become stronger, and the fact that there will still be room for one last update to the quest by patch 3.5, it's likely that he or his mysterious master will serve Kefka's role in the original Warring Triad story.

• Alternately, Hydrus will hold the honor of Kefka in this tail, being a legatos to the emperor similarly to how Kefka was originally part of an empire before taking things into his own hands.
• Jossed, Unukahlai's heart is only ever in the right place, he's unambiguously good even if his master is revealed to be an Ascian.

The mysterious, shadowy figure from the Heavensward Hildibrand quest is:

Well, there's going to be some speculation. Let's get to it.

• A heretic whom Cyr will attempt to arrest.
• Gilgamesh
• Hildibrand's mother again
  • Jossed she shows up playing with Godbert in the snow.
• Gigi's creator

Haurchefant will come back wrong.

In an interview, Yoshida said it was possible Haurchefant would return, due to the feedback he got. Knowing the game's world can be very dark, this option is entirely possible.

• He does make a brief appearance as a spirit to help the Warrior of Light and Alphinaud remove Nidhogg's eyes from Estinien, providing support along with Iceheart. So he did "return" as Yoshida said he would.
• Alternatively, Omega Weapon cites "the death of a comrade" as a potential way to inflict stress upon the Warrior of Light (thus increasing his or her 'performance') in the Deltascape raid. It's possible Omega might compile some version of Haurchefant to test its hypothesis...
• A popular hypothesis I've seen that's related is The body that Zenos posesses is Haurchefant's. Haurchefant's soul may or may not be in for the ride.
• Jossed due to the body never being confirmed to be his and he is never mentioned ever again.

Final Fantasy III, Final Fantasy VI and Final Fantasy XIV all share the same world

This may take some explaining, but if the Zelda series can do it, so can the Final Fantasy series. We know for sure that something very similar to Final Fantasy III happened in Eorzea's past, it may be that details were lost or altered along the way - or even that the version of Final Fantasy III that we got is a more simplified version of the more detailed events that are revealed in Final Fantasy XIV.

Additionally, there are hints that Final Fantasy VI occurred in the world of XIV too. There are the overt appearances of the Warring Triad and the magitek of the Garlean empire, the kingdom of Doma, references to Mog being a legendary figure among the moogles, Relm is a remembered as a figure from a fairy tale and Ultros and Typhon reappear from the void. Perhaps the return of the Warring Triad is tied to how magic returned; a kind of morphic resonance. Doma, despite its apparent destruction, survived as a name and rebuilt. Ultros and Typhon likely escaped to the void after the events of VI, which explains why they keep popping up in the same manner as Gilgamesh.

The basic timeline would be VI - III - XIV, with each game separated by millennia, perhaps more in the gap between VI and III, to account for the shifting of continents and return of magic to the world after the events of VI. The events of VI are long lost, and only in XIV is the world returning to the level of technology it used to have before Kefka destroyed the world.

• Jossed by Word of God. While many past Final Fantasy game elements are reused/repurposed for Final Fantasy XIV, they are confirmed to be only homages to the source material and that XIV is not connected to any other world.

The Palace of the Dead in 3.3 will be a ruin of Gelmorra

It's located in the Black Shroud, and it is deep underground like the lost Duskwight city of Gelmorra. We'll finally get more lore about it, since it's scarce. And the woman in the lacy dress shown at the end of the trailer is Edda.

• Confirmed on both counts.

It will eventually be revealed that there are still some Allagans alive

And they will come from the moon or somewhere else in space. If they were able to launch objects into space, it's possible that they had had space faring technology. Other Final Fantasies had people coming from space, so it's possible they'll make a reappearance too, showing how their people weren't all wiped out.

• Though time travel is a possibility as well for their reappearance.
• Confirmed in a sense. Noah, the Ancient Allagan scholar who the Crystal Tower allies named their group after, exists in the present day after the events of said questline via an artifact and a form of Grand Theft Me (he promises to return the person's body after he finishes using it to study the modern era and what remains of the legacy of his old Empire).
• Ultimately confirmed, since Amon is alive, and he is none other than Fandaniel.

The song Answers is sung from the perspective of Hydaelyn.

• Confirmed: Endwalker shows a cutscene of Venat becoming Hydaelyn and sundering the world, forcing mankind into weaker forms and experiencing suffering, all to strengthen man against Meteion and the Final Days.

Van Hydrus will absorb power from the Warring Triad to become the Final Boss of that questline.

Since the Warring Triad and the quests around it borrow from Final Fantasy VI, Van Hydrus is lined up to play a similar role to Kefka. As a high-ranking official in an empire, working to gain the Eikon's power for said empire, Van Hydrus will find some way to access that power but be mutated by it into the last Trial for the storyline.

• Jossed: he pulls a Enemy Mine and dies in a Heroic Sacrifice to save Unukalhai.

We will eventually get a trial against Julyan

• And for bonus points it will only have an extreme difficulty
  • From Fan Fest 2016: "Q: Godbert Manderville trial? Yoshida: You can't beat him. If you beat him, Julyan is the Savage difficulty version." (Please look forward to it.)

One of the new jobs next expansion will be Spellblade or Red Mage

One person shown in 3.4 to practice it is Alisaie, who summoned a magic blade to use in combat. It had a slender look, sort of like a rapier, and she continued to use magic alongside it - including a Blade of Light to defeat the Warriors of Darkness. Later, if you speak to her, she mentions taking knowledge from all schools of magic, hinting at Red Mages traditionally doing the same.

• Confirmed: as of the 2016 fanfest and Stormblood.

Raubahn is a Blue Mage

He's named after a Blue Mage from XI. His weapon resembles one of the Blue Mage weapons from the same game, and his attacks from the duel in Heavensward all seem to be based on monster abilities.

• Jossed: Blue Mage was introduced with an origin tracing it back to a native civilization in the New World that barely has gotten a foothold in Eorzean culture.

The Griffon's true identity is Ilberd

Obsessed with the liberation of Ala Mhigo, distrustful of the Scions of the Seventh Dawn, highly secretive, refusing to remove his mask for any reason, stated by Elidibus to be despised by the world and filled with unmatched rage and desire for vengeance.]] Square Enix is basically screaming it in our faces.

• Confirmed.

Elidibus came to the Source to do what Minfilia is doing to the First world

Right before being sent off to the First, Minfilia described herself as an emissary, just like Elidibus is. He has often spoke of maintaining balance so he could be a being that traverses through the other worlds to absorb any of their excess light or darkness. It's possible that his white robes signify he has already absorbed Light from another world and intends to restore it to Hydaelyn at the Source, keeping Hydaelyn and Zodiark in equilibrium - but his goals aren't quite heroic, because he wants to achieve equilibrium by Rejoining them together, rather than keeping them apart like what Minfilia is doing. This makes Minfilia something of his Good Counterpart.

The classes/jobs of the two characters fighting in the 4.0 teaser trailer are...

• Monks: they were mostly focusing on hand to hand combat
  • Confirmed for the Warrior of Light at least.
• Dancer: the female character's dress and movements before the fight resemble that of a dancer.
  • Turns out it's just an unmasked Yda/Lyse wearing a different outfit and is now a Monk.
• Red and Blue Mages: each fighter had a red and blue aura surround them towards the end of their fight.
  • Jossed: Both are monks/pugilists. The one in red is Yda's younger sister, Lyse.

The new Jobs for Stormblood.

• Red Mage: Let's get the obvious one out of the way. At the 2016 Las Vegas Fan Fest, Yoshida pulled his shirt trick once again. This time his shirt was of Marvel's Scarlet Witch. He also mentioned having watched Captain America: Civil War. Most have figured that this is a signal to the Red Mage being included. (Scarlet=Red, Witch=Mage, kind of a no brainer).
  • Yoshida's also made mention that Red Mage is one of his favorite jobs in the franchise, but didn't know how to make them work with XIV's gameplay style when they were planning for HW. Since they got passed up for Heavensward it makes sense he'd try to get them in at the next possible chance.
  • CONFIRMED in the Japanese Fanfest.
• Blue Mage: As mentioned above, there have been numerous hints both in-game and from the development team that Blue Mages are on the horizon, most recently, the speculation regarding Raubahn above.
  • Confirmed. Blue Mages are now limited player classes, though the speculation on Rubahn has been Jossed.
• Dancer: As mentioned earlier, the female character from the Stormblood reveal trailer appears to take on the style and movements of a dancer.
  • Confirmed as of Stormblood's release.
• Time Mage: Time Magic plays a very heavy role in the side stories of the later Heavensward patches. These might end up being a hint that the class in on the way as well. Given how both Vivi and Alexander used Time Magic to repair themselves or other things around them, it would probably be implemented as a Healer role.
  • Unlikely, as Astrologian is fundamentally a time mage in everything but name, just with a thin layer of Astrology on top of it.
• Samurai: They actually wanted them to be added to the game by Heavensward and foreshadowed them as soon as 2.2 when they foreshadowed Ninja, but they outright admit they shelved them in favor of working on Dark Knight because it was more thematically appropriate for Ishgard.
  • Possibly confirmed, albeit through Datamining so grain of salt. There's class strings for animations belonging to Samurai, just below strings belonging to Red Mage.
  • CONFIRMED.

We will eventually get a 8-man trial series (like the Warring Triad) against the Grand Company Leaders and Aymeric if he doesn't end up as one

Considering how well received the solo instance fight against Raubahn was, SE might want to capitalize on it by letting us have a more serious fight with him and by extension the rest of them their own trial.

The central theme of the game is loss, mourning, and acceptance

On both a personal level and the backstory, Eorzia is full of and haunted by loss. On a personal level, there was the massacre at the Waking Sands, The Monetarist scheme, Harchefaunt's death, Lousioux's death (if you were a 1.0 player) and Minfillia's definitive sacrifice. On a whole, there was the Calamity, Shiva's sacrifice to create peace, the murder of Ratataskr, Tiamat's revival of Bahamut as a primal, The Warrior of Darkness' loss of their home, and even minor things like Edda losing Avere.

That's ultimately where the strongest of the game's themes come from; moving on from horrible things like that. The PC managed to mourn properly and move on from the tragedies they've suffered, even if it's been a long road that's left them horribly scarred emotionally. And despite it all through and through, they've stayed Eorzia's Warrior of Light. This acceptance of loss is also noticeable in friendly Non Player Characters, Hraesvelgr's heart still aches from Shiva's loss and Ratataskr's death, but he's moved on and willing to look to the future, as are all of his children. It's the same for Ishgard as well, acceptance of the horrible things they did has helped put them on the track towards becoming something great.

On the flipside, you have those who refuse to accept loss who are treated as villains. Nidhogg still mourns, but hadn't accepted his sister's murder and still raged instead of trying to move on. Tiamat couldn't move on from Bahamut being slain and revived him as a primal, but realizing the horror of what she's done has left her time to mourn and move on, and she's treated as nothing but sympathetic now. The Warriors of Darkness lost their home and resorted to horrible, heart-shattering things to try to save what was left of it. And even Edda couldn't move on from Avere's death, making her susceptible to what's implied to be an Ascian teaching her necromancy.

• Even more relevant as of Shadowbringers, where we learn the motivation of the Ascians. They lost their entire world, and the fourteen pieces of it are so much lesser that in their eyes it mocks the perfection that once was. So they seek to put the pieces back together, not caring that it means committing omnicide thirteen times over with a matching Calamity on the Source for each one.

• Zig-zagged: Word of God has it that the game wasn't entirely planned until the end of the Heavensward expansion, but it's indeed a very strong theme on its wrapping conclusion Endwalker.

The Miqo'te are unrelated to the other races

That is, the Miqo'te belong to the Felidae family, while the other races, though diverse in size and stature, belong to the primate family. There is some evidence to support this in game; the flavor text for the Fat Cat minion indicates scholars in Eorzea are beginning to suspect the same thing, though it isn't confirmed. It is known that the Miqo'te have a large imbalance favoring female births over male births, and have two distinct matriarchal and patriarchal cultures that reflect that. While inter-racial couples are still something of a taboo in Eorzea, the Miqo'te have a reputation for promiscuity. If they were closely related to the other races, they would be able to reproduce with them, and Miqo'te culture wouldn't have changed to reflect that possibility before now, either to discourage it or collapsing it completely. As it hasn't, we can only assume that they aren't related.

...and were genetically uplifted to their present state by the Allagans

Think about it. Isn't it a hell of a coincidence to get such as strongly human-like race in a completely different genetic family? While there certainly are beast tribes that undoubtedly possess sapience, including in plants, they are only vaguely human-shape at best. Shouldn't the Miqo'te be a lot more cat-like?

It is known for sure that the Allagans possessed knowledge of Miqo'te genetics, they infused royal blood into a Miqo'te bloodline in order to protect the Crystal Tower. If the above assumption is true (that Miqo'te and the other races cannot interbreed), that's a strange thing to do, unless you take into the consideration the possibility that, like the Ixali, they were being genetically engineered as a client race for the Allagans.

What form the Miqo'te took before Allagan intervention isn't known, they could have been a much more animalistic beast tribe or even created wholesale from ordinary cats. The Allagans made it a project to gift them with sapience and human-like features while preserving their unparalleled skills at hunting, but for whatever reason were unable or unwilling to remove some features like the ears, pupils, tails or gender imbalance. Then, as the Allagan empire fell, the guardians of the Crystal Tower, knowing that the Miqo'te had the instincts and the intelligence to survive, infused some of them with the blood necessary to protect it. With the Allagan empire gone, the world fell into chaos, and the Miqo'te lost the knowledge of their origin and became a race of hunters, leading us to the modern day.

Hresvelgr attacking the Heavensward cinematic wasn't an error.

As of 3.4, we know there exist several alternate worlds as mirrors to Hydaelyn. With this knowledge, we can easily explain why Hresvelgr was leading an attack against Ishgard during the cinematic.

The cinematic takes place in an alternate world where Hresvelgr allied himself with Nidhogg in his mission of vengeance. Hresvelgr said himself that only Shiva's calming influence on his soul kept him from being the same as his brood brother, and here we see that in one world, it simply wasn't enough to dissuade him.

• Jossed. Devs confirmed that the dragon attacking was the wrong model used and the team had no time to correct it before release. Shadowbringers also confirms that the other shards are not just pure mirror worlds to the Source with some things swapped, but each one having a much larger difference in culture, landscape, and history.

To coincide with the swimming mechanic, 4.0 will also add a Blitzball mini-game to the Gold Saucer.

Really this one speaks for itself.

• Alternately, blitzball will be a Garlean sport that the Ala Mhigans play and actually like.

Omega was powered by an Allagan-summoned Primal

Similar to how the illuminati summoned a primal to power Alexander, Allug may have done the same for their ultimate Eikon slayer.

• Alexander was a gigantic Primal, not powered by one. That was the whole point; a machine that big and complex couldn't be built properly, but its sheer size was draining the land around it.
• Second part also Jossed: Omega wasn't built by the Allagans at all, it's an alien machine that crashed into Hydaelyn and Allag tech was reverse-engineered from it.

The primal being summoned at the end of the patch 3.5 trailer is

• Omega (see immediately above) Though possibly jossed as it appeared that Omega was being used to attack the Primal, though this doesn't rule out the possibility entirely.
  • Jossed: It was a new Primal, which the Domans dub Shinryu based on a dragon from legend. Omega is activated to fight it.

Stormblood will do for Widergelt what Heavensward did for Estinien.

• Widergelt will play a huge role in the upcoming Stormblood storyline, especially given his identity as Prince Theodred.
• Jossed: Lyse takes on that role

Stormblood

A climax boss in The Bend of Time - Omega will be Illberd.

• This is assumming that the primal summoned at the end of 3.51 is somehow related to Omega and given the fact he's a huge Karma Houdini, fans will be more than eager to properly finish him off for good.
• Jossed: He does not appear at all.

The Bend of Time will have two story lines between regular and Savage difficulties

• This bonus story was suggested at the fan fests, where it met much encouragement from the audience. With 3.5 complete, we now know what the two stories will be about.
• Regular Bend of Time will focus on retrieving Omega, which will be the easier challenge because of its autonomous nature and that Cid and Nero have understanding of it enough to control or debilitate it. The Savage difficulty will focus on Shinryu, the primal Omega was sent to subdue who is even more powerful than Bahamut.
  • Jossed: The Savage raids are hypothetical fights based on battle data, although the final boss of each tier does get an extra form that doesn't appear in Normal.

Gosetsu is a Half-Human Hybrid

• He has the body type and animations of a male Roegadyn, but his face and skin tone bear a stronger resemblance to Hyur. The easy answer is that Gosetsu has one Roegadyn parent and one Hyur parent.
  • Jossed. The Live Letter has confirmed that he is a full Roegadyn.
  Q3: Gosetsu looks like a Roegadyn, but also looks like a big Highlander. Which race is he?
  A3: He's a Roegadyn, but one from the lands to the East. Rather than a Sea Wolf, he's closer to the Hellsguard tribe.

The Lupin, the Namazu, that tribe of Qirin in Gyr Abania and maybe those elephant men at The Azim Steppe are going to summon a primal and get a beast tribe quest

• Well who else are we going to fight in 4.1 to 4.5?
  • Jossed: None of the above summon a Primal. Instead, Yotsuyu transforms into Tsukuyomi.

The reason Zenos' final plan was a success

• This will contain spoilers for Stormblood, you have been warned.

• The reason Zenos could use his "resonance" to fully control Shinryu wasn't due to the power of this experiment. Zenos was able to control the primal because it was Shinryu he chose to control. Shinryu has no personality, it's a creature of pure violence. Had Zenos attempted to merge with any other primal, likely he would have to battle with its own sense of will. Zenos was fortunate that his test subject was an Almighty Idiot.
  • Stormblood also has further revelations that Zenos is 1/4 Ascian, so his Ascian heritage along with his Resonance could have just as well dominated a stronger primal like Bahamut.

Gilgamesh will reappear within the Omega Raid series.

• The raid takes place within the Interdimensional Rift. Even ignoring the numerous existing FF5 references which make up the Bend of Time, Greg is frequently pulled in and out of the rift in his other cameos.
  • Jossed, Gilgamesh is returning, as part of the 4.X hildibrand content(teased in 4.1 and slated for 4.2)

Exdeath will reappear in the penultimate battle of the Bend of Time

• Unlike every other boss in the raid series encountered before him Exdeath doesn't dissolve and vanish, but rather gets pulled into the void much like he did after his battle in Final Fantasy V. He may return (most likely the fight immediately before Omega) as Neo-Exdeath.
  • Possibly Jossed: Neo Exdeath is a savage-only fight in Delta 4, so it's unlikely they would recycle an easier version of a boss they already have for whatever the final boss of the next wing is.

Each segment of the Omega raid will draw inspiration from a different Final Fantasy game

• Seeing as the first segment already used the Big Bad of V, it's possible the next two segments will follow suit with other titles. Most likely ones tied together via the Rift, Gilgamesh, or by Omega itself.
  • Patch 4.2 did indeed draw on Final Fantasy VI, but 4.4 only had one past boss, Chaos from Final Fantasy I.

The remaining Omega raid segments will focus on Final Fantasy V's superbosses

• Though Exdeath is already out of the way, it's still possibly the game will use the stronger villains from the game, like Enuo, or possibly even a rematch with Gilgamesh due to the Rift setting.
  • Jossed: Sigmascape was focused on Final Fantasy VI while Alphascape starts with Chaos and goes back to XIV from there.

Theories on Omega's nature

.

• So much about Omega seems mysterious, but if we look at his history as a superboss in the entirely of the franchise we can probably see a bit where it comes from. In the Dawn of Souls remake of Final Fantasy, Omega has a biography stating that he was created as an ancient weapon of the Lufenians meant to hunt and kill dragons, and mostly succeeded, which is why Bahamut is the only dragon of power the original Warriors of Light meet that isn't a feral beast.
• Going off of this, and that Midgardsormr has a history with it, this is my thought: Omega and Middy are from the same world originally, and was created by whatever spoken lived on their planet with the intention of wiping the dragons out. While an evolving machine of limitless potential, Omega couldn't take down 'Sormr itself even when it caught up to him, but still succeeded in wiping out the dragons, making a comment about Midgardsormr's arrival on Hydaelyn take on a darker tone, he wasn't coming with seven eggs from the stars to seek a home, he was a refugee fleeing his homeworld with the last of his eggs in desperate hope to keep his race from going extinct. And Omega's goal is the same as ever, to become strong enough to take down Midgardsormr, and to that end it's used the primals, Allagans, and now the deltascape to evolve itself to try to finally achieve its prime directive.
  • As of 4.2 this backstory is confirmed nearly verbatim

Ultima may return and become the final boss to the final part of the Return to Ivalice raids

• With the pieces and players involved in the Return to Ivalice raid, it may be possible that Jenomis cen Lexentale/Arazlam Durai may be in possession of the Virgo Auracite, otherwise known as Ultima. While his goal of translating and releasing the Durai Report is of good intent, Ultima may be influencing him to a degree and line everything up to regain its power and take shape once more, possibly setting itself up as the final boss of the raid altogether.
  • Confirmed, though she ended up possessing Ramza instead.

Legacy is not on the same world as A Realm Reborn

• Nobody seems to have a clear answer on what actually happened in the five years between Legacy and A Realm Reborn, but despite the massive amount of damage that Bahamut was able to do in just the first couple of minutes from his escape, one truly has to wonder how anyone managed to beat him, and nobody can give any explanation whatsoever. So what if Louisoix's last ditch effort wasn't an attempt to prepare for the future, but an apology for failing to be able to do anything for the warriors who fought so hard to save Eorzea? The Archon uses the last power he has to send them to another of the worlds in hope that they can help the inhabitants of that world stop what he was unable to. The people who remember the flashes of the Warriors of Light from the Realm Reborn world are remembering their counterparts who sacrificed their life to actually defeat Bahamut in that world before he could cause nearly the kind of damage he caused in your characters' homeworld.
• Jossed. The Calamity is one of many on the same world as explained in Shadowbringers.

Magnai was part of the Company of Heroes

• Well where else did he get the axe from
  • Jossed. Word of God confirms that they use weapon models they think best suits a character, thus Magnai's axe is not the axe from Titan.

After 4.3 (assuming the arc of whatever is happening in Doma is finished) the MSQ will follow Magnai trying to find his Nhaama who is obviously Sadu

• Jossed: Magnai only has one extra scene in the post-Stormblood story. He also asks Y'shtola if she's his Nhaama, who turns him down handedly.

Arenvald will die in a Heroic Sacrifice

• Jossed: He doesn't do any sacrificing. So far, the last time he's appeared in the story is in the Level 80 Summoner quest.
  • Possibly confirmed. He did pull a Heroic Sacrifice for Fordola during Death Unto Dawn, but his death is not confirmed.
  • Jossed: He survived, but with serious injuries that have sidelined him indefinitely.]

Future ideas for Ultimate tier raids

• Warring Triad all at once
• After Amaterasu appears as the final boss of the Hingashi expansion or whatever; Japan's big three all at once
  • Jossed on Stormblood's final boss. The final boss of Stormblood is Elidibus in the body of Zenos yae Galvus.
• The Eorzean Alliance leaders
• Midgardsormr and some of his kids like Nidhogg (complete with Estinien form), Tiamat and Hraesvelgr and some of his grandkids like Tioman and Vishap
• The Garlean generals and other important Garleans (so like Gaius, Regula, Nael and Zenos or something) but they're on foot like in Final Fantasy XII
• The Scions; Papalymo, Y'shtola, Thancred, Moenbryda, Alisaie, Alphinaud, Urianger, Krile, Arenvald, Tataru, Minfillia and/or Lyse.
• Godbert and Julyan.
• Rowena and Lolorito and whatever creative things they spend their gil on
• The WoL having an emotional breakdown; so like Fray, Myste, painful memories and whatever direction the Dark Knight quests head in
• Alexander and friends but designed like it was Gordias
  • Confirmed: The Epic of Alexander is an Alexander-themed Ultimate along with him fusing with Brute Justice and Cruise Chaser to become Perfect Alexander.
• original characters of the devs so like Nonora rather than the Wandering Minstrel
• Omega but even more assets ripped from Dissidia
  • Confirmed in The Omega Protocol (Ultimate), minus the Dissidia bit.
• The Zodiac Espers including Belial and Cuchulainn models ripped straight from Final Fantasy XII too
• The Void Ark like the actual boat thing
• The devs themselves
• Another Yo-kai Watch crossover
• The moogles of Moghome and the Twelveswood team up and summon Good King Moggle Mog XII for good measure
• Something original that isn't built on previous assets (but that requires too much effort)
• A Shadowbringers-esque Ultimate which involves fighting through the gauntlet of Titania and Innocence together, then Hades and the Warrior of Light together.
• One big free-for-all against all of your class/job trainers. The Warrior of Light, Elidibus, uses their Specters to wear down the Warrior of Darkness before their final confrontation and these are the trainers at their strongest, including Estinien fueled by the Eyes of Nidhogg.
• Zodiark if he were completely whole and at his full power.

Hydaelyn is the Big Good, Zodiark is the Big Bad... and Elidibus is the Big Neutral trying to merge them back together.

• Elidibus is clearly different than the other Ascians, from his dress to his behavior to his preference to avoid conflict. He's also prone to talking about balance and warning others not to upset it too much one way or the other, and conspires against the Warrior of Light more as they prove more of a threat to balance. But at the same time, he's remarkably helpful to Urianger when they're looking for a way to help the Warriors of Darkness and seems like as not to undermine his black-robed fellows if it suits his purposes, not seeming to care too much when they fail or die and even mocking Lahabrea on more than a few occasions. While he might have Pragmatic Villain reasons for doing this, it could also be possible that he's not entirely on their side in the first place and is pursuing a completely different goal. As the Warriors of Darkness say, Hydaelyn and Zodiark used to be the same being in the beginning before they split and Zodiark was shattered. Elidibus wants to end the Light vs. Dark conflict altogether not by bringing about Zodiark's ascension but by merging the two back together, ending the potentially world-destroying conflict by effectively eliminating both sides. It would also explain the unusual nature of his dress, being a creature of darkness clad in white, his great concern for the balance, and his moral ambiguity and willingness to play both sides.
• Shadowbringers more or less confirms this on a few spots. Hydaelyn was created by the Ascians who did not agree with the others summoning Zodiark to save their world. Hydaelyn defeated Zodiark and split him into several shards, the alternate worlds to the Source. The surviving Ascians are trying to revive Zodiark so that their world can be restored.

The Final Antagonist of Return to Ivalice will be...

• The Original Ramza, who's wish for everyone to return to the land gets corrupted by the auracite.
• Queen Remedi/Li-Grim who embodies and manifests her "son's" wishes and twists them to her own will in Tactic's Advance much like the auracite does in the raid story. And since phases 1 and 2 of the raid focused on Tactics 1 and Final Fantasy 12 respectively, TA is the likely conclusion of the Ivalice Alliance games.
• Someone from Vagrant Story
  • Jossed: It was Ultima, the High Seraph.

A new Calamity will occur before the start of 5.0.

If the end of the trailer for patch 4.4 is to be believed, a new Calamity is on the way.

• If it does happen, the Warrior of light might be the one accidentally causing it in some way. The voice in the trailer seems to directly request the Warrior to reestablish the balance, being the only one able to set things "right".
• The reveal trailer for Shadowbringers shows things might have gotten a lot worse. The lion statue and the warrior statue from Amdapor City hard mode make their appearance; the lion engages Thancred and the warrior, Kiribu, fights the Warrior of Light. She easily puts him down no matter what job he switches to (Archer > Warrior > Dragoon > Monk > Samurai). Only when the Warrior of Light switches to Dark Knight does he have a fighting chance and the voiceover narration states that the Warrior of Light must become a Warrior of Darkness. And all of this is happening while the Warrior of Light is completely alone.
• Jossed: The entire point of 5.0 is to prevent another Calamity.

Shadowbringers

Solus's true identity is Emet-Selch.

• It seems awfully suspicious that Gaius would bring up the name Emet-Selch when we already know of the two Ascians controlling Garlemald from the shadows. After all, Solus doesn't fit the Theme Naming of the other Ascians, and the only other Ascian who didn't follow the naming scheme was using an alias.
  • Confirmed

Y'Shtola as "Master Matoya"?

• In the extended trailer for Shadowbringers, we have Urianger referring to Y'Shtola as "Master Matoya". But, Master Matoya was the name of Y'Shtola's old teacher. That means one of a number of things: Either "Master Matoya" is a title and Y'Shtola inherits it or Matoya is still a name and something happens to both of them so that they end up fusing together.
  • Jossed: it's basically an alias that she uses among the Night's Blessed, who believe that everyone should keep their true names hidden.

The Scions in the Shadowbringers trailer aren't our Scions.

• We are traveling to the "First Shard", one of the alternate Hydaelyns created by Zodiark's defeat. The Scions we see in the trailer, the Astrologian Urianger, Gunbreaker Thancred, and "Master Matoya" Y'shtola are all the Alternate Universe counterparts to the characters we know in the Source.
  • Jossed: They're the embodied souls of our Scions that the Crystal Exarch pulled away from the Source during the events of Stormblood.

Lahabrea's "crowning moment of idiocy" was letting Gaius van Baelsar live.

• Solus knows exactly what Gaius is capable of, having pretended to be his closest friend for decades. Lahabrea betraying Gaius at the end of A Realm Reborn gave him the motivation to hunt down Ascians instead of continuing his attempt to conquer Eorzea. And as 4.3 showed, Gaius and his new companions have defeated at least five Ascians (two of which were red-masked and thus high-ranking). Now Elidibus and Solus have to worry about two mortals that equal them in strength and are actively working against them instead of just one.

Varis will become a primal.

• As noted by Hien in 4.5, despite Garleans disdaining the worship of gods, they worship Varis with the fervor of one, bonus points if it's the primal version of the Emperor from 2.
  • Quite possible to happen now that he's been slain and up until then he was The Unfought...
  • Alternately... Since it took death for Zenos to awaken to his Ascian heritage, the same thing would happen to Varis, allowing the two of them to end up being a Composite Character of II's Emperor. Zenos is the Devil side while Varis is the Angel side.
    • Confirmed in a twisted sense; Zenos and Fandaniel use Garlemald's faith in the Emperor to convert his corpse into the primal Anima.

Myste's form is :an amalgamation of the friends the Warrior of Light has lost

• Confirmed: Word of God is that Myste is based on both Haurchefant and Ysayle.

Unukalhai is another shard of our soul.

• Ardbert is a Warrior of Light on the First and he's a shard of the WoL's soul, ergo, since Unukalhai is a Warrior of Light of the Thirteeneth, he is also. It'd be nice to put him back in the story somehow.
  • Jossed: He's implied to be a shard of Nyelbert's soul.

Hythlodaeus was the Warrior of Light's original self.

• Notice how he's the only one aside from the WoL themselves who can sense and see Ardbert.
• Jossed: The Warrior of Light's original self was Azem, one of the Convocation of Fourteen and a mutual friend of Hythlodaeus and Emet-Selch's.

The Yorha:Dark Apocalypse raids send us to the bad future the Exarch came from.

• At the end of the MSQ, the Exarch surmises that perhaps his timeline is somewhere out there. Where better to have a setting like that than in an actual Dark Apocalypse?

The final dungeon of the Shadowbringers will be set in the bad timeline.

• If not what the previous WMG says, then why not this?
  • Jossed: The final dungeon of Shadowbringers as a whole is Pagl'than, the ancestral homeland of the Amal'jaa.

If Ryne ever crosses over to the Source, she will become Minfilia again.

• To give the player one final gut punch at the end.

'The sound from within the earth' will be the final boss of the game.

• In the backstory for Amaurot, it's shown that it was the fault of a 'sound from within the earth' that the Ascians began losing control of their creation magic and began accidentally creating monstrosities that led to their doom. This sound will be revealed as being the fault of some eldritch being, perhaps another Elder Primal or godlike entity, and Hydaelyn/Zodiark will willingly merge to give the Warrior of Light the blessings of light and dark to defeat it.
  • So the Final Boss will be Lavos?
  • Confirmed: The sound (or rather, the source of it, Meteion/The Endsinger), is indeed the final boss of Endwalker.

Future Eden raids will run the rest of the ARR Primals

• Since the first section of Eden involved new versions of Leviathan and Titan, we'll end up having to fight new versions of old-world primals like Shiva, Ramuh, Garuda and Ifrit. Eden Ifrit would also look more in line with his classic version and Eden Shiva could end up splitting into two bike clones that have to be brought down to prevent a raid wiping attack if not in standard mode, then in Savage.
  • Confirmed. You do fight new versions of Ramuh, Ifrit and Garuda. The latter two are fought as a tag team.
  • Also confirmed for Shiva, though the bike clones isn't a thing with her. Ryne becomes Eden Shiva and loses control of it. Her "light" form is her take of Hydaelyn and in Savage mode, her third form is Hresvelgr wrapped around her body in "dragon" form. Her raid wipe attack is a new Flood of Light.

What does the "P" in "2P" stand for?

• Androids in NieR: Automata are named after their model (e.g. 2B is No. 2 Type B, "B" meaning "Battle"), and while 2P is a reference to 2B's Palette Swap in Soulcalibur VI, the name seems intentional and suggests the existence of Type-P, knowing Yoko Taro. Any guesses what the P means?
  • Considering the events of the Puppet's Bunker, Production maybe?
  • Or, considering the name of Puppet's Bunker, Puppet? 2B indicates that they aren't actual YoRHa.

The next expansion's Disciple of the Hand/Land trainers

• Whatever happens in the post-Shadowbringers story, the next expansion will take place back in Eorzea, and new chances for the Warrior of Light to expand their crafts. The blacksmith trainer would be Gerolt, the goldsmith trainer being Godbert Manderville while the culinarian trainer would be Julyan.

The Shadowbringers Hildibrand storyline

• While we've yet to know what shenanigans they'll end up getting to after being dragged into the First, one thing that will end up being used with great fanfare is the Great Serpent of Ronka, especially since while the Hildibrand stories start out hilarious, they end up having a Cerebus switch where things get super serious. In the G So R's case... It'll turn out to be that it was just biding its time to mutate into an 8-man trial boss that threatens creation worse than any Lightwarden.
  • Jossed. Developers stated that they will not do Hilidibrand for Shadowbringers.
  • Somewhat Jossed the jossed. While it's technically not in Shadowbringers, Endwalker 6.2 added a Hildibrand questline that takes you back to the First, where Hildibrand gets to confuse and annoy denizens of the Crystarium.

Mad King Theodoric

• We only know of the last king of Ala Mhigo as a crazed tyrant who committed a number of atrocities in his reign. He was likely a normal man until the Ascians got a hold of his mind and/or body. Doubly if it was Emet-Selch.

The villain of 6.0 will be Varis zos Galvus.

• While it is true that he's dead, there are a couple reasons I think that this is not going to stop that character from taking villain center stage.
  • Varis had, last we spoke to him, an Allagan cloning facility that wasn't used for anything in Shadowbringers - Emet-Selch used a different body in the First and morphed it into a form resembling Solus. Allagan cloning technology was used to truly resurrect Xande - it's very possible that Varis was researching this for just such a contingency as his own death.
  • The only narratively satisfying people to take the throne in Varis's absence would be Zenos (by birthright) and Gaius (presumably after rallying the citizens around him during the civil war.) Both are complete non-options as of 5.1 - Zenos has no interest in the throne, and Gaius has been framed as Varis's killer.
  • 6.0 will likely be Garlemald. I can't imagine that Garlemald will be simply dealt with as a threat offscreen cause Zenos decided to go murder his dad - especially with the mini-dungeon bit of the Imperial Palace, whose assets I can't imagine creating without the intent to go there in the very near future. If 6.0 is Garlemald, then whoever manages to claim the throne in the chaos will likely take villain center stage.
  • All the major villains in FFXIV have a strong association with a past villain - Nael is Sephiroth, Gaius is Vayne, Thordan is Seymour, Zenos is Sephiroth, Emet-Selch is Zemus. Varis has a strong association with Emperor Mateus Palamecia - whose most famous deed was dying in an anticlimax halfway into the game before coming back as the final boss. If Varis comes back from the dead and claims villainy again, he will have done the same.
  • Looks to be Jossed—the villains of 6.0 are Zenos and Fandaniel. That being said, the 8-man raid series of the expansion is entitled Pandæmonium, which has a connection with Emperor Mateus (being the name of his castle after he died), so it's not out of the realm of possibility that Varis returns in those raids.
  • Zig-zagged, as Varis is Anima, so he is there, just not the main villain.

Emet-Selch gave Vauthry the Warriors of Darkness' corpses to make the Cardinal Virtues.

• Cylva assumes that the Ascians had some hand in their creation, but the Cardinal Virtues' bodies are a bit too fresh to have just been rotting in the ground for nearly a century before Vauthry supposedly dug them up. After all, the Warriors were convinced by the Ascians to travel to the source, so it's not out of the question that one of them was around when they offed themselves on the First to do so. It would also give an explanation for why Ardbert's body wasn't used to make a Virtue: Emet-Selch saw the shard of his friend's soul in Ardbert, and wouldn't want to desecrate his friend's memories by making their vessel into a plaything for Vauthry.

Rhitatayn will come back as a boss

• A big armored guy with a horned helmet who was the first Garlean you fought in 2.0 that was pathetically easy. When you consider that the Garlean antagonists are patterned after previous antagonists from the series, he sounds a lot like Garland. Maybe this time he'll prove to be a challenge.
  • Confirmed: Though he is still only a mid-boss.
  • Further Confirmed in Patch 6.1, which reworks his fight from a 8-man Trial into a solo fight, where he definitely proves to be a challenge.

[[spoiler:Zodiark will be released, and he'll be revealed to be an absolute asshole.

• In order to contrast the sympathetic backstory of the Ascians, Zodiark will be completely awful. He'll reveal to Elidibus that he never intended to return the souls of Amaurot at all, before killing him after he goes over the Despair Event Horizon. It'll then be revealed that he intends to eat the souls of the inhabitants of Hydaelyn's shards before killing the Mothercrystal herself, just to spite her for getting in his way. And his final plan will be to take the souls of every living being in the multiverse just to feed his need for aether.
  • Jossed about Elidibus. He's killed in 5.3 and it's revealed the one we've known this whole time is a Primal of the original Elidibus and had been separated from Zodiark, both fighting for and against him in each Shard to usher in the Rejoining. Elidibus is also killed before he gets to see Zodiark ever reborn.
  • Confirmed: Zodiark is indeed released. He is then killed. It's not a good thing.

Zenos is responsible for the Sound

It's said there was a sound that turned all of the ancient Ascians so fearful it made their creation magics go so haywire leading to the apocalypse that led to the creation of not only Zodiark but Hydaelyn. The 5.2 trailer shows Zenos walking through the re-enactment of Amaurot and during this patch, if not 5.3 as well, he suffers a Villainous Breakdown so bad it travels across the ages. It would be horrifying if Emet-Selch in whatever Ascian afterlife they go to realizes his bloodline gave birth to his race's downfall.

• """Jossed:''' Zenos was just having a dream of the Final Days.

9S and the Machines are not actually working together and 2P is lying

• If we follow 2P's narrative then the conclusion should be pretty simple, we are in the path of Ending D, 9S went insane for reasons unknown and is now hunting 2P because she reminds him of 2B with the aid of the Machine Network. However we are dealing with Yoko Taro here his stories are never that straightforward and one side never has the full story. To start with the 2P's narrative starts to fall apart with even a passing knowledge of the games, she never mentions YoRHa, doesn't bat an eye at the sight of the Android's gods (humanity), despite even by 2B's knowledge having never seen a human in millenia, and implies that the Androids and the Machines are working together, something neither side is even willing to consider in Automata, similarily she claims that 9S is the one controlling the Machines, something that is impossible for even a hacker as strong as 9S to do, even if we take the existence of Adam, Eve, or the Red Girls out of the equation. As if Taro wanted to put a final nail in 2P's narrative he reveals that 9S doesn't have the Logic Virus anymore and we are given hints that the Machines are being forcefully hacked by the Yo R Ha Android given their pleas for help and mercy. Finally, and perhaps more simplistic of all is that there is no P designation among Yo R Ha, and 2P's introduction is unusually informal for considering 2B's previous robotic behaviour. What each side wants is a mystery for now, but it is clear that they are not aligned and that 2P is either ignorant of said reality at best, or actively lying to the heroes for a secret agenda at worst.
  • Confirmed: 2P was manipulating the Warrior of Light into helping her unleash the Machines onto the First, and 9S was actually trying to stop her.

Future Weapon battles

Since it's shown at the end of the Ruby Weapon questline that Sapphire is next and that the VI Ith Legion is willing to use previously killed officers in Oversouls like they used Nael van Darnus. Sapphire could end up using Regula van Hydrus with callbacks to the Warring Triad and Emerald Weapon being Grynewaht using callbacks to not just Shinryu, but also Susano and Tsukuyomi, and it would be all his namedays have come at once to get one final shot from the dead at the Warrior of Light.

• Confirmed on Sapphire being Regula, though it’s less Warring Triad since it turns out to be a Flawed Prototype.
• Jossed: on Emerald being Grynewaht. It's Gaius from his invasion of Werlyt.
• The Diamond Weapon will be piloted by Valens van Varro during the final chapter of the story, its Oversoul being Livia sas Junis, who has been dead since Castrum Meridianum in A Realm Reborn. Just to make sure its a one hell of a Climax Boss, even after beating it with G-Warrior, the Warrior has to go down on foot and disable it. Just for added pain, Gaius has to be the one to fully destroy Diamond Weapon/Livia to put her to rest once and for all.
• Jossed on Livia. Valens is wanting to make Diamond Weapon's data be Zenos yae Galvus's.

The Next Weapon Battle will be an homage to Combining Mecha or Transforming Mecha

Since previous Weapon Battles have had elements of Eva and Gundam it would not be surprising that they keep this trend going and give the G-Warrior either a combined form a la GaoGaiGar or a transformable form a la Super Dimension Fortress Macross. Also giving the player the chance for either a hammer attack or a Macross Missile Massacre would be a lot of fun.

• More specifically, 5.5 against the final weapon will have the G-Warrior combine with or be upgraded with parts of the previously destroyed weapons either before or after having to fight the last weapon as a trial encounter.

Gaia is a preview of the Time Mage job

Gaia's magic has involved delayed reaction spells and turning her opponents into time bombs. When the Warrior of Light becomes a Time Mage by getting their own crystal, they can not only use the same kind of skills Gaia did, but also use buffs to give faster action speed and cooldowns as well.

The final form of the Shadowbringers Gunbreaker relic weapon will be the Lionheart

Since the gunbreaker job is modeled after Squall in Final Fantasy VIII, especially with the first form based on the Revolver, Squall's first weapon, it's likely the final form of the relic weapon for gunbreakers.

• Keep in mind that Gunbreakers have a Weathered Lion Heart as an i480 gunblade. It's got the namesake, but isn't the actual weapon.

Gerolt and Grenoldt are two pieces of an Ancient soul.

The crafting system is just an extremely watered down version of creation magic, but these two are the best of the best. Clearly these two would've been the best blacksmith in Amaurot. And they weren't on the Convocation because, A. they hate working with other people: Grenolt moved to the bottom of the ocean to focus on his craft, and Gerolt regularly has to be bribed to work with the Warrior of Light in the Relic weapon quests and he's expressed disdain about the Ul'dahn Syndicate; B. they specialize in weapons and armor, which would've had no practical use in the utopian Amaurot.

Gerolt will get to finally pay off every last red gil to Rowena by the time of the final expansion

Of course getting to do so is tricky since it would involve a rather insane Warrior of Light to make each and every full level relic weapon across every expansion. Not only would it be a Throw the Dog a Bone moment for Gerolt, but it would give a title that only 0.001% of players in the game will ever get as well as a mount.

Every class going forward will get Zodiac, Anima, Eureka and Resistance relic versions

While it would be a lot of work both for the players to go through the process in each relic series as well as the developers to backport older weapons for newer classes, it would still tie into the previous WMG of "make every relic weapon for every class" achievement. And that includes Blue Mage and whatever Limited Jobs are made by the time the game's final expansion is released.

FF11's world, as different as it is, is another Shard

Especially if it turns out that 11's Adventurer is another piece of the Wo L's soul.

Anogg and Konogg are the game's equivalent of Devola and Popola.

All snarking and bombs aside, there's going to be a point where One of the twins ends up dying either by 9S's hands or another villain in the YoRHa Dark Apocalypse storyline and have their "NO ONE STOOOOOPS!" moment.

• We see an unmasked Anogg in 5.4, and she appears to be a redhead, at least.

In 5.5's main story, Fandaniel will pull both a You Have Failed Me and You Have Outlived Your Usefulness on Zenos.

Zenos only sees taking over his own empire as a means to an end: to have an unsullied hunt for his "friend," the Warrior of Light. Not only will the Warrior prove stronger, but Fandaniel will show that this was all a Xanatos Gambit in the end that if either the Warrior or Zenos killed each other, he'd pick off the winner of the fight and use the chaos to bring about the Eight Calamity since Black Rose is now off the table.

• Jossed: Fandaniel does betray Zenos in the end by taking control of Zodiark himself, but not for any of the guessed reasons, nor does he kill Zenos.

Fandaniel was "Lahabrea's mistake."

One thing that's noticed during the Ultima Weapon battle is that there's a ball of light seen fluttering about during the tracking shot before the party fights it after Lahabrea makes it cast Ultima, destroying the Praetorium. Unknown to the Garlean Empire outside of Emperor Solus/Emet-Selch, then Emperor Varis, this was where Fandaniel was sealed up since he's too much of a wild card by even Ascian standards.

• Jossed: At no point was Fandiel implied to be "sealed" as described above. He's a sundered Ancient who reincarnated as Amon and has been working with them since he was recruited in the final days of Allag's existence. Lahabrea's mistake is implied to be his recklessness not only causing disruptions with the Ascians plans, but led to multiple members of the Convocation of Thirteen being vanquished and sent to the lifestream.

The white androids and the entire series of events of the YoRHa Raids were caused by Machine Lifeforms trying to replicate human birth and it backfiring hard.

• From the Portable Archive records, we can see that the Machine Lifeforms were developing curiosity over the process of birth, and it's highly likely that they would begin to experiment with it. This would result in the development of the White Androids and the mannequin-like beings, who would turn on the Machine Lifeforms for their own goals...whatever they may be.

The Heroes' Gauntlet bosses are previews of classes for 6.0

The Spectral Thief, Necromancer and Berserker are potential new classes for the next expansion after Shadowbringers. The Thief would be an offshoot of the Rogue class. Necromancer would be an offshoot of Thaumaturge, going into darker arts than the Black Mage would have. Berserker, however, is basically a combination of different classes. The Inner Beast of the Warrior, the leaping jump damage of a Dragoon and the BFS of a Dark Knight.

• Jossed as of now. The next class is confirmed to be Sage, a healer.

The final battle theme against Zenos in 5.5 will be a Dark Reprise of the Shadowbringers theme as well as a combination of The Worm's Tail.

Whereas the theme music against the Warrior of Light is a Triumphant Reprise that's about giving hope, this theme will about spreading despair.

• Jossed: The music played for the final battle with Zenos is "Footfalls", the main theme of Endwalker.

Part 3 of the YoRHa raid

While exploring the ruins of the Puppet's Bunker, besides digging up files in the base, one thing is revealed if you look at the monitor where the 905-P boss fight was. There are two white-clad androids left unaccounted for. They'll most likely be the ones who bring out the Tower, which was The Very Definitely Final Dungeon in NieR: Automata.

• Confirmed: The Tower is the final part of the YoRHa raid series.

When 9S wakes up, he'll say he has nothing to report.

It would be a shoutout to one of 9S's English voice actor's more memetic roles.

• Jossed. No voice acting from the Nier raids exist.

Zenos has already either absorbed or otherwise incapacitated Zodiark.

Last we saw Zenos and Fandaniel in 5.2 they were in an imperial battleship heading towards a place unknown. Then fast forward to 5.3 and we learn that Elidibus is Zodiark's heart who has somehow separated himself and become a primal to guide the Ascians. Then we promptly kill him this patch. That is bound to negatively affect Zodiark himself, and would leave him particularly vulnerable to Zenos's resonant ability. And in 5.3 we see Zenos and Fandaniel suddenly back in the Imperial palace despite having just left it to pursue Zodiark, in the throne room utterly pitch black. Rule of Symbolism perhaps foreshadowing that Zenos has absorbed Zodiark's power? And clearly, we missed a step in Zenos's and Fandaniel's journey, with Fandaniel expressing surprise that Elidibus didn't try to stop their actions. What could these actions be? Well looking at the evidence, it clearly must have involved Zodiark since that was where they were headed, and Elidibus would have clearly intervened if Zodiark himself was at risk. And considering Fandaniel is calling Zenos "His Radiance" despite not formally assuming the throne, may be a double meaning in that Zenos triumphing over Zodiark either through absorbing or incapacitation, would make Zenos the new master of the Ascians.

• Jossed: Endwalker shows how Zenos and Fandaniel reach Zodiark and then pull a twist by making Fandaniel join with Zodiark instead of Zenos.

Next Eden Primal would be King Moggle Mog combined with King Thordan

Not sure how that would work since it seems they got all of the elements. Perhaps it would be an attempt to revive the moogle species since they aren't spotted in the First.

• There actually is precisely one moogle seen in Norvrandt: Nutsy, leader of the regional hunting clan.
  • Jossed: The Eden Primals are Leviathan, Titan, Ramuh, Ifrit, Garuda, Shiva, and the Cloud of Darkness.

Final Fantasy XI and it's setting, Vana'diel, is one of the 13 reflections of the Source

Not only are the playable races in FFXI nearly a carbon copy of the ones in FFXIV, but some of the monsters models are nearly the exact same. Furthermore, when Iroha finds herself in Eorzea during "A Maiden's Rhapsody," the text explicitly states that she's not only found herself in another world, but that the Warrior of Light eerily reminds her of her master. It very well could be that Iroha was somehow transported to Eorzea similar to how the Scions were transported to The First and that the Adventurer (the player character of FFXI) is part of the Warrior of Light's sundered soul like Ardbert was.

The 6.x 8-man raids will be Primals of the Twelve.

With the assumption that 6.0 will take place in Garlemald, there's a chance that the Eorzean Alliance or a radical splinter group may actually take Gaius' advice from the Praetorium and summon the Twelve to fight on their behalf. Of course, this will go horribly wrong, and the Warrior of Light will be called in to destroy these violent replicas of Eorzea's gods.

• Half-jossed. One of the hints shown is of an Ascian with Lahabrea's mask in a place called Pandaemonium. However, the 24-man alliance raids will focus on the Twelve.

It would be interesting, to say the least. The Twelve themselves mostly exist as background lore, so seeing them make a physical appearance would be very satisfying.

• It's mentioned that :whatever the Twelve you fight are, they are not Primals, so Jossed.

Even in 6.0, there's still going to be adventures in the First

Whether it's a new world event, raid series or deep dungeon, there'll always be some reason for the Warrior of Light/Darkness to keep coming back.

• Definitely looking like it since 5.4 has a series of quests that set up a new arc involving the New Warriors of Light and Unukalhai.
• Alternatively, it will be a return point in 6.1 - the past stories have involved few detours to prior locales in the main game, with Heavensward standing out as the most heavily involved but even then only lasting a couple quests in total, Stormblood only returning to ARR areas in transition between Gyr Abania and Othard, and Shadowbringers not involving any canon return until the patches. However, the patches have always included returns to past locales, and that seems likely to continue.
• Confirmed: Somehow Further Hildibrand's Adventures, of all things, starts in the First. Apparently him appearing in 5.3 was not just a gag.

Throughout 6.0, it will be revealed that Fandaniel was the one responsible for the Sound that caused the Final Days of Amaurot.

Since his plan in 5.4 has towers that he has to invoke the Final Days on the Source, he'll also try it again on the First to finish the job that Emet-Selch and Elidibus started. Since many of the Ascians' real names so far have been based on Classical Mythology, his name will be Zeus to clash with Emet-Selch's Hades.

• Confirmed, in a roundabout way. When the world was whole, he made the being, Meteion, who was responsible for the sound. Jossed on the name. Fandaniel's real name is Hermes.

The final trial of the Sorrow of Werlyt series

With the G-Warrior still undergoing repairs and apparently due to recieve some upgrades, plus the general factor of not wanting to let it simply go to waste, a showdown between the G-Warrior and the Diamond Weapon seems all but inevitable. However, there still needs to be a trial and Extreme trial for 5.5, and while it's possible that SE will break with their previously established pattern and tie them into either the MSQ or another sidequest chain, it's far more likely to end up as part of the Sorrow chain. So instead, the writers Take a Third Option: 5.5's quests open up with a solo duty where you put paid to the final Weapon, but in the process the G-Warrior is thrashed, and with the Garleans closing in, the Resistance is left with no choice but to airlift you out of there and blast the wreck to hell and gone so as to deny Valens any sort of prize. Except, naturally, that doesn't work, and sometime later the VIIth Legion launches the inevitable counterattack on Terncliff, led by our favorite Mad Scientist Valens piloting the refitted and appropriately repainted G-Warrior. Time to gather up seven of your best friends (or just DF randos)!

The Grotesquerie Queen will be the final boss of the Nier Automata raid

With the recent bombshell that was dropped in 5.4 a question arises, who is going to be the final boss of the raid? In Automata's side most of the major characters that would be able to take the title have already been fought, 9S, Engels, or are either not available or unwilling to fight the party, Adam and Eve, the Red Girls, 2B. The answer may very well have been revealed in 5.4 to be a Grotesquerie Queen, the appearance of the Seed of Resurrection is a horrible thing to happen, if the events of the Drakengard series are anything to go by, and the fact that it spat out something that resembles Anogg makes it all the worse. Fighting an Anogg shaped Grotesquerie Queen fulfills the Yoko Taro story trope of fighting one of, or possibly both, twins, may very well cause the "No one stops" moment and creates a powerful oponent to be the final boss.

• Looking pretty Jossed! The trailer for 5.5 shows it's the Red Girls.
• Turns out only semi-Jossed, the Red Girls fused with the Seed of Creation to create their own version of a Grotesquerie Queen called the False Idol and Her Inflorescence and create a new world.

Alternatively, the sphere isn't a Seed of Destruction

While the possibility of fighting a Grotesquerie Queen as a final boss sounds awesome there is another possibility with what was shown in 5.4. Yoko Taro is a known Troll and one that delights on using hints from previous games to subvert expectations and there is something strange with this particular Seed, if it is one, Annog's behavior is strange because, as Furiae so nightmarishly demonstrated in Drakengard, those who are revived by the Seeds of Redemption/Destruction become monstrous parodies of their former selves with an insatiable desire to kill all living beings but, other than an inability to speak the language of the First, Anogg's behavior didn't change in the slightest to the point that no one, not even her own brother questioned if this was the real Anogg. It may be possible that the Machine Network is using whatever knowledge it has of the Drakengard world to create a Seed of Destruction of their own in an attempt to understand the existence and intentions of God, as the humans did before them.

• Confirmed: The Seed is a creation of the Network with the intention of recreating the Grotesquerie Queen seen in Tokyo millennia ago and create a new world. They succeed in opening a portal and creating a new Queen but are promptly foiled by the Warrior of Light, 2B, 9S and Anogg.
  • Maybe Jossed? The False Idol/Her Inflorescence seems to know some things about Drakengard / Nier lore that wouldn't make sense for the Machines to know.

Gaius will end up performing a Redemption Equals Death/Heroic Sacrifice at the end of the Sorrow of Werlyt storyline

He's spent the last couple expansions as the Shadowhunter, but while the Warrior of Light is fighting the Diamond Weapon, he puts on the armor of the Black Wolf one last time to Hold the Line against any reinforcements and show why he was so feared, and why Emperor Varis handpicked him to begin with. Just for even harsher Tear Jerker sake, it'll also be one last homage to the ending of Crisis Core, and worse.... No matter how many you take down, he's going to end up taking all but three faceless mooks down with him.

• Jossed. He very much lives.

Song predictions for Part 3 of the YoRHa Raid

Since this is the final part of the Nier Automata crossover, and likely crossing over into Drakengard, all bets are off now, even if where it's used may not make sense.

• "A Beautiful Song."
• "The Tower."
• "Wretched Weaponry."
• An FF14-remix of "Birth of a Wish."
• If the Grotesquerie Queen is involved, then some combination of "The Final Song" from Drakengard 3 and Shadowbringers' main theme.
  • All Jossed: We got Emil-Despair, Mourning, Posessed by Disease and a remix of Kainé with Final Fantasy. Shame. would have liked Birth of a Wish in here.

Based on Yoko Taro's track record, the Nier raid series isn't truly done yet, and there's going to be a Rhythm Bonus Boss.

Konogg is going to find something during his exploration, and call the Warrior of Light for help. They'll come, Konogg will reveal something is trying to find its way into the world, and he believes it has something to do with what happened at the Tower. The Wo L agrees to investigate, and then Sudden Rhythm Game Boss Battle! Theories about Boss titles go below.

• The Watcher's Song
• Semi-Jossed: The final boss does include a rhythm game like mechanic, but there is no Optional Boss.
  • I think you misunderstood my point, which is fair cause I didn't phrase it that well. I meant after all of Konogg's Messages come through.
  • Apparently I was wrong. Jossed.

When Final Fantasy XVI is released, we'll be quickly introduced to the XVIth Legion

Whether they'll play as part of a new raid series, battleground or part of the focus for 7.0.

The leader of the Dalmascan resistance is an Ascian

Their leader is allegedly Ashe, who died 20 years ago but some characters refer to her as if she was still alive. What could be possible is that an Ascian took control of her body possibly retaining her original form throughout the years.

Endwalker

Pandaemonium is where all the Ascians that the Warrior of Light has killed go when they die

However the battle against the Warrior and Zenos ends, it will definitely tear a hole into a new dimension that involves every last Ascian that has been fought and killed by the Warrior of Light over their storied career, allowing them to have one last chance to settle the score, especially Lahabrea who has been dead since Heavensward, and also finally give some much needed character development to Igeyorhm who barely got any, but allow them to reveal their true names and forms. Emet-Selch and Elidibus would be more allied, having tried their damnedest to kill the Warrior and know they'll pull the impossible out. One of the opponents they'll go against is Mitron, who'll test to see if you're still worthy of protecting Loghrif, aka Gaia. By the end of it, the place will turn out to be corrupted by the long-dead Emperor Varis zos Galvus, who's still part-Ascian by way of being the grandson of Emperor Solos zos Galvus, allowing him to be the Expy of Emperor Palamecia.

• Pandemonium was a hell gate in II.
• Interesting thing to note: Lahabrea is on the cover of the raid series. In Final Fantasy XII, Lahabrea is the Scion that opposes the Esper Mateus. Mateus is the name of the Palamecian Emperor who found his way out of Hell and summoned Pandemonium.
  • Jossed, Pandemonium is just where the Ancients kept concepts too dangerous to be released into the wild but too scientifically interesting to just destroy. It is managed by Lahabrea though.

Beast Tribes in Endwalker will include

• Matanga: These were confirmed with the reveal and are only here for organization and confirmation sake.
• Hummingways: Between the players going to the moon, the description of the Namingway minion, and Yoshi-P not so subtly teasing them in the Beast Tribe showcase by drawing special attention to the fact that a certain iconic Final Fantasy race comes from the moon.
  • Confirmed but they're going to be called Loporits.
• PuPu, since they are basically aliens.

The letter Z will be important among the antagonists, Fandaniel’s true name is Zemus, and Zeromus will be the final boss

Zenos’ plans involve Zodiark, and during the final confrontation Zemus will fuse with Zodiark and will become Zeromus.

• Alternatively as mentioned above, Fandaniel true name will be Zeus.
  • Jossed. While Zenos' plans involve Zodiark, there is no Zemus; Fandaniel's past life's name is Amon, and his true name as an ancient was Hermes. Also, Zeromus shows up in an entirely different form in patch 6.4 after defeating Golbez in his trial, long after Zenos is already dead.

Tsukoyomi will appear

Rather than looking like Yotsuyu, this will be the “true” Tsukoyomi, and instead of a foe, will be a major ally in the moon.

Endwalker will call back to IV

As Endwalker is the fourth expansion, they weren’t exactly subtle about the FFIV references, and many call backs and characters will appear, for example, an ally named Cecil and a recurring antagonist named Golbez.

• Maybe not explicitly named such characters, but they would be more Expies of said characters. Since Alphinaud and Alisaie have been the twin casters, they'll be the gender reversed roles of Palom and Porom. Since Estinien is now confirmed to be a Trust member, he'll be Kain. Unless Lyse or Widargelt finally makes the jump to Trust, one of them will be Yang.
• If Gaius is still alive after the Sorrow of Werlyt, he'll go through Cecil's Paladin arc where he confronts his inner darkness represented by his Legatus armor. He learns to let go of his hate and anger, allowing himself to be purged of his darkness before becoming a Garlean-esque paladin with technology to compensate for no aether.
  • Gaius has no presence in the 6.x story. We got Cecil's Paladin moment in another character: Zero, in 6.5, though through learning to trust others and embrace the light.
• Definitely confirmed on the Golbez part. Even though his name hasn't been spoken yet, he's introduced in 6.1.

There will never be any male viera or female hrothgar, playable or otherwise

It's been one of the most requested things in every Live Letter stream is to announce if and when there's gonna be playable male viera and/or female hrothgar, the two of them only existing as All There in the Manual.

• Jossed! Endwalker is introducing male Viera, with female Hrothgar to arrive afterwards.

Gaius will be the next Scion/Trust Member after Estinien

After all is said and done, Gaius really did change for the better, and his experiences since Stormblood has made him realize he can still atone. And in a refreshing change of pace, it will be a Redemption Equals Life and he will fully commit to the cause of protecting Eorza, joining the Scions as a new man, better than ever. In a side note, he will probably fill the tank job in Trust.

• There's also the fact we don't know how he got those Ascian masks and the fact one of them probably belongs to Fandaniel
• Jossed: The next Trust party member after Estinien is Zero. Now she is not a Scion, but considering that she is a Trust while Varshahn isn't suggests she is going to stick around.

Anima is going to be Zenos' mum

Well who else's mum is she going to be?

• Alternatively, going by the Venat is Azem's mother theory, Venat will be Anima
• Double alternatively, Anima is Hydaelyn and Zodiark glued together, it's literally on the Endwalker cover art
  • Contrasting this, I believe that Anima is going to be Varis. If anyone is going to be the core of a primal that's tempering people towards Garlemald itself it would be him, as I think he's the Dreamer that has been mentioned. Daddy Issues works just as well. Twofold two due to Emet and Varis's relationship.
  • Confirmed on Anima being Varis!

Garlemald will continue to be a threat after Endwalker

Note that Yoshida said Endwalker will conclude the Hydaelyn and Zodiark arc and said nothing about the Garleans. There are unknown members of the imperial family and it's unlikely any of them are going to give up their power. So if Garlemald does survive, it could be fractured as well.

The starter villain of Endwalker is... Zenos

We all know Fandaniel is the one with the cards in this expansion, "cooperating" with Zenos' rather mundane plan for a rematch with the Warrior of Light. However, while Zenos' power is fairly stable, the Warrior of Light's experiences in the first, powered up by Arbert's merging with your soul, as well as being Azem in the past life, means your power has advanced to a level too great for Zenos to match and he is utterly defeated in the first part of Endwalker, without too much fanfare. This then paves the way for Fandaniel to take center stage. Fadaniel might even finish him off for good measure just to prove a point.

• Jossed: Zodiark is a Disk-One Final Boss. Zenos ends up being Post-Final Boss.

Elidibus' true name is Hermes.

Emet-Selch's true name is Hades, and Gaia is revealed to be Ascian as well. Her lover Mitron, also an Ascian, is named Artemis. Given that admittedly small sample size they seem to be following names of Greek gods; this troper theorizes that therefore Elidibus' true name is Hermes, after the Greek god of messengers and heralds. He was also canonically the youngest of the Olympians, as Elidibus was the youngest of the Convocation.

• Jossed: Hermes is the true name of Fandaniel. Elidibus' true name was Themis.

Possibilities for Azem's true name.

• Apollo, following the sun symbolism.
• Dionysus, because they were a wandering god, and one of the side story associates them with grapes.
  • To add on, Dionysus is known as a genderfluid deity, among his epithets are "twice-born" and "liberator," and in some mythologies is closely related to or even the same deity as Hades. And of course is "mad," walks among men, and most intriguingly is a foreign or traveling god
• Helios, also for the sun symbolism.
• Eos, Goddess of the Dawn, also for the sun symbolism.
• Persephone, because just like the goddess’s fate which dictates her to go to the mortal world to create spring, new lives, and hope for all humans, then return to the underworld, Azem and their reincarnations also travel all worlds, fight back against “winters” to save mankind before returning to the Aether Sea, waiting to be reborn and repeat the cycle again and again.
  • Also, Persephone is the one god that truly has a close relationship with Hades Emet-Selch while being his opposite.
• Heracles, a wandering hero who had a habit of appearing in other people's stories to resolve the problem, who later ascended to become the god of strength. Said to have single-handedly made the world safe for people to live in.
• Alternatively, we'll literally never find out.

Lahabrea's true name

Thanatos:

• As the above WMG pointed out, the true names of the Ascians revealed have all been the names of Greek Gods. Lahabrea is slated to return in Endwalker as the main antagonist of the Pandemonium raid series. Lahabrea has been dead since Heavensward and Pandemonium is the palace of Hell itself in Paradise Lost and Final Fantasy II. It seems fitting that Lahabrea would be named after the Greek god of death.

Poseidon:

• Since the Ascians' real names are all probably from Classical Mythology. Lahabrea is also a horse guy, a Pisces, Mateus carries a trident, the fact he's probably Thaliak (as much as the Emet-Wo L shippers wouldn't like to believe), which sort of fits for Poseidon I guess.

Hephaestus:

• He's fire themed, and was skilled with Creation magic, and by the time we meet him he has been 'crippled' albeit by his own doing. Also in the Pandemonium raids we meet his son who is named Erichtonios, which was the name of a son of Hephaestus in some myths.
  • Confirmed, albeit with the spelling Hephaistos

That white haired Elezen that Y'shtola is speaking to in the Endwalker trailer is the father of Alphinaud and Alisaie.

• Confirmed: It's not like they made this a secret, Koji did say anybody who read the lorebooks would immediately know who it is.

The Reaper class quest will have Shout Outs not just to Bloodborne but to Overwatch

Considering all the various voidsent looking like the various monstrosities that the Hunter would fight and kill in Yharnam, this is a given.

The Overwatch one would be if there's a whole set of OW expies with the Reaper one indeed going DIE! DIE! DIE! when using their Limit Break during the Level 90 Class Quest.

• Jossed: No such references, sadly.

Sharlayan will end up having a Neutral No Longer moment

Whether it is Fourchenault leading the charge after his own children, Y'shtola or another Scion give him a "The Reason You Suck" Speech along with the Warrior of Light, or another scholar who goes over his head, there'll be a big Gondor Calls for Aid moment and Sharlayan will be there to answer the call after so many years of keeping themselves out of everyone's business. They'll primarily serve as the backup keeping every voidsent and tempered force out while the Warrior of Light (and 7 other friends) fight the final boss of Endwalker, which might just be Zodiark.

The legend of the Warrior of Light (as in like the Final Fantasy guy) came from one time Mitron got beat up

Because Mitron = Chaos and for an extra dose of irony instead of Azem beating him up, it was Elidibus who beat up Mitron. Alternatively Elidibus, Azem and two others beat him up.

Which member of the Twelve fits into which member of the Convocation of Fourteen

So after the big reveal the Azeyma may have been named after Azem, we can assume the other members of the Twelve where somehow based on the Convocation of Fourteen.

• Althyk: Loghrif, God of Time. Uses an axe (which could be kinda interchangable with a hammer, Belias uses a club thing too). Associated with the element of Earth and Loghrif's real name is Gaia.
• Azeyma: Azem, similar sounding name and both are Sun people.
• Nald'thal: Emet-Selch, Nald'thal are twins and Emet-Selch is a gemini. Leader of the underworld, Emet-Selch's real name is Hades. Nald'thal is also a money guy and Hades was also a god of wealth.
• Nymeia: Mitron, wheel symbol and Chaos' title is Walker of the Wheel. Associated with the element of Water and Mitron is fish guy. Also hangs out with Althyk/Loghrif.
• Thaliak: Lahabrea, scholar guys. Associated with the element of Water and Lahabrea is a Pisces and his real name is probably Poseidon. Bonus points if Pandæmonium ends up being based near Old Sharlayan.
• Menphina: Venat, after Endwalker Magnai tells you that Nhaama created the moon but we know Venat created the moon, and since Menphina is the goddess of the moon then maybe Venat is her Eorzean equivalent heck she's probably Tsukuyomi, her Othardian equivalent too.

The reason Yorha Dark Apocalypse got greenlit was because Shadowbringers looks suspiciously similar to Drakengard lore

• Crystarium = Cathedral City; a mysterious futuristic looking city comes out of nowhere, the difference is the Crystarium appearing is suppose to stop a cataclysm.
• A worldwide cataclysm is caused by accident. In the First, the Warriors of Darkness accidentally allowed imbalanced light to spread; in Nier, the death of Angelus caused by fighter jets kickstarted the apocalypse on Earth.
• Sin Eaters are similar to the Legion and those effected by White Chlorination Syndrome.
• The world is covered in eternal light.

Endwalker's Relic Weapon Quest will take place...on the First!

More purified territory will open up after the Eden storyline, allowing more land to be settled past Lakeland and Kholusia. Of course, whether there's a whole new can of Sin Eaters waiting out there, or something worse from before the Flood of Light, we've yet to see it.

• Jossed: The Relic Weapons are of Manderville design and are crafted on the Source. The Splendorous Tools, however, are created on the First.

If the VIIth Legion return, there'll be another Expy as the Legatus

Since Sorrow of Werlyt ended with the very well-deserved death of Valens van Varro, even with the Enemy Civil War going on, other factions will still be trying to take over. Since Nael van Darnus was Sephiroth by bringing down Dalamud and Valens was Hojo, it's likely the next Legatus will be more like Heidegger or Scarlett, if not both. Especially if their version of the raid series with different series of the Proud Clod with the final series being the Pride and Joy...of Garlemald.

Fandaniel killed most of the rest of the Convocation offscreen.

Since they presumably don't want the same thing as him and might get in his way he probably got rid of them quietly beforehand. The exceptions being the other ascian Gaius thought he killed (assuming one of them was Fandaniel) and some other part of Igeyorhm who will go on to cause shenanigans at Pandæmonium.

Diabolos is a RACE of voidsent!

Considering he's meant to have been killed off at Dun Scaith, there's a good chance that all the Warrior of Light has managed to do was kill just ONE powerful Diabolos and if there's ever a chance a future expansion goes fully into the Thirteenth/World of Darkness, then we'll be seeing a lot more of him, if not THEM! Since the Diablo Armament was made to contain Diabolos, it stands to chance that more than one has been lurking around the world biding their time.

• Confirmed. The lorebooks states it was a "Diabolos-class" voidsent.

Azem's memories will be an important plot point in Endwalker.

It's mentioned that Azem opposed the summoning of both Hydaelyn and Zodiark, and was looking to Take a Third Option during the Final Days. What if Azem found that option, but it was too late to put it into practice, and now the Warrior of Light will have to find some way to access Azem's memories to discover a way to undo whatever it is that Zenos and Fandaniel have wrought?

• Jossed: Azem's memories never play a significant roll in Endwalker.

Zenos will undergo a Heel–Face Turn and join the Scions against Fandaniel.

Zenos's main motivation for all of this is that he wants to face off against the Warrior of Light. Once he does, he'll decide that fighting the Warrior of Light is simply too much fun and will help us stop Fandaniel so that he can continue to fight against us many more times in the future.

• Interestingly enough, the poster art for Endwalker revealed during the 2021 Fanfest is titled 'Scions', which contains artwork of the Scions of the Seventh Dawn, along with the mysterious woman from Silvertear Lake (presumed by many to be Venat), and... Zenos.
• He does help against Fandaniel's machinations, but it's an Enemy Mine situation. He is also the Post-Final Boss.

There will be a Garlean Restoration, similar to both Ishgard and the Doman Enclave.

From what we can see in the Endwalker trailers, Garlemald is looking pretty trashed. Once we manage to deal with the Final Days and Fandaniel/Zenos, they'll certainly need some help rebuilding. Maybe we'll even be able to buy a house in Garlemald one day.

The Sharlayans don't just know the Final Days are occurring again; they want it to happen.

With the confirmation that Labyrinthos is beneath Old Sharlayan, the suspicion that it's some sort of Sharlayan apocalypse bunker has more or less been confirmed. While it seems like the Sharlayans to be so Crazy-Prepared that they have a contingency for something like a Calamity, we could take this a step further; they are not only expecting something grander that will risk destroying the world, but they in fact want it to happen. Why? As seen in both the astrologian questline and the brief interactions with Fourchenault in the MSQ, many members of the Sharlayan forum have nothing but utter disdain for the other civilisations of the world, seeing them as barbaric and warmongering, to the point they even consider self-defence disdainful. It's entirely possible they have somehow discovered when the Final Days are occuring - or worse, are somehow even aiding Fandaniel under the misguided suspicion that he will spare them if they assist him in his 'fun' (which, if the case, will surely go as well as would expect when dealing with an Omnicidal Maniac). By letting the Final Days occur without actually shedding blood with their own hands, they can maintain their self-important stance as Technical Pacifists, while seeing the end of the barbarian civilisations that - in their eyes - would just kill themselves out eventually, anyway. This would allow the Sharlayans to repopulate the star with a truly enlightened civilisation that sees violence as unnecessary and completely beneath them. [[History Repeats Not unlike the Ancients...

• Jossed: Old Sharlayan does know about the Final Days and has the means to control what would come along for the evacuation, but they don't actually want it to happen.

Mikoto's twin sister will play a part in a future patch storyline

In her Field Notes from the "Save the Queen" storyline, it's revealed that Mikoto has a twin who was part of the Sharlayan Archons, but was kicked out due to being heavily critical of them. However the story turns out in Endwalker, Mikoto's sister will likely be siding with the IVth Legion, especially if the Liberation of Dalmasca is now at hand.

There's two Fandaniels running around

This is based on the fact he has an unexplained costume change in like 5.3. Alternatively he's sharing the body with someone else presumably his ??? that Natsuko seems to like so much. And it's Gaius' fault for the state the Fandaniels are in.

• Also Fandaniel's ??? is the other Ascian Gaius managed to beat the shit out of.
• Jossed: We meet his past self before he was Fandaniel, but not a second copy of him or another being sharing his body.
  • The ??? likely refers to Meteion.

Eventual future expansions will take people to other planets in the FFXIV universe

We know that there are other planets with life aside from Hydaelyn in FFXIV, such as the dragon planet and the planet where Omega was created. We also know that Hydaelyn's moon will play a key role in Endwalker, and the expansion itself has a lot of inspiration from Final Fantasy IV, which also features the moon in a major capacity.

And since that's the case, it's possible that Hydaelyn's moon is actually a spaceship, similar to what's revealed about the moon in Final Fantasy IV: The After Years. And that would be the perfect way to include brand new planets into FFXIV—by using the moon to travel from planet to planet.

This would be a perfect next step for FFXIV if they cover the whole of Hydaelyn, and it would open up countless possibilities towards the future. It doesn't have to be the next expansion after Endwalker, but it could be on the table at some point in the future.

• Confirmed... kind of. Ultima Thule, the final zone, is comprised of reconstructed fragments of the dragons' and Omega's worlds. Worlds that had both met their end already.
• Fully Confirmed as of the 2023 Japan Fanfest. Dawntrail's Lifestyle Content will involve travelling to other planets in some way.

G'raha was part of a Terminator Twosome

The theory runs on the assumption that Zenos made it out of the Black Rose shenanigans fine. Basically long after the Black Rose shenanigans Zenos hears about Garlond Ironworks and friends planning on sending G'raha back in time to save the WoL, and with one final chance at his hunt, he either hitched a ride and got separated or he showed up after Garlond Ironworks sent G'raha on his way, making them do the same thing but for him.

Fourchenault is putting up a Jerkass Façade

Beneath the Mask, Fourchenault might be a conflicted man who truly wants what's best for both Sharlayan and his family, but as the Astrologian questline establishes, a majority of Sharlayan's leaders are people who blackmailed, threatened, and killed to get to where they are now. Fourchenault does want to help, but has likely received death threats directed at the twins and their mother and finds his hands tied. So he's putting on his best My Country, Right or Wrong act. That fact that he, such a high-ranking member of the Forum, travelled all the way to Eorzea just to say no to helping fight Zenos and Fandaniel, combined with him saying "If the Final Days were truly upon us, we would know", tipped G'raha off that they know something about the Final Days and helps support this theory, and Fourchenault disowned Alphinaud and Alisaie so they would be able to act without fear of reprisal from the Forum.

• Jossed: He turns out to be an overprotective parent who hastily disowned them because he felt the Warrior of Light and others had "corrupted" them (a decision he comes to regret later into the story.)

The Warrior of Light will call on their full power in the final battle of Endwalker.

Self-explanatory, but there is a spoiler for how it will manifest. The Warrior of Light will call on their full potential as an Ascian in the final battle with Zodiark, manifesting a Mark Of Power over their face in gold rather than the Ascian's red.

• Partially Confirmed and partially Jossed. While the Warrior of Light does indeed call upon their full potential, they gain a golden aura instead of a golden mask.

Gaia, Ryne and Unukalhai will make their way to the Source in Endwalker

Gaia is an ascian (and also she's like the only non-MSQ character to have a voice actor), Ryne has Minfilia powers and Unukalhai can be shoved into a crystal and taken wherever. So naturally it'll make sense for them to come see Thancred and Urianger or something.

• Also Ryne will be a Gunbreaker.
  • Unfortunately Jossed.

There's some kind of early Plot Twist in Endwalker that drastically affects the plot or something

Just trying to reason why we know like a lot less coming into Endwalker than the previous expansions, since it would be easy to spoil or something.

• Hoo boy, Confirmed as all hell. Fandaniel releasing Zodiark was part of a Thanatos Gambit. His goal was to kill Zodiark, who was the Barrier Maiden protecting the world from the Final Days.

Fandaniel is still continuing the Ascians goal and is not as crazy as he appears, just incredibly pragmatic

If the launch trailer is to be believed, it's possible that Fandaniel is just playing up his role as the mad villain to help Zenos and push the world to the edge. It could be possible that as the world nears the end, Fandaniel might somehow speak to the world all at once (maybe disguising himself with Hydaelyn's voice) to beg them to wish for salvation, which in turn allows him to use the whole world as a sacrifice to Zodiark to bring back the old world, since it's technically saving them.

• Jossed: He had a more fleshed out motive than expected but did not act to further the late Paragons' goals. There is a long story behind his actions. The current incarnation of Fandaniel was recruited from his sundered Source shard. To be precise, Fandaniel's latest incarnation that was recruited by Emet-Selch was Amon. That's right, the same Amon that resurrected the first Emperor of Allag. The Amon that you engaged in combat in the Crystal Tower raid was only a clone of himself. His experience as a citizen of Allag, rotting with disgusting pleasures, and serving Xande colored his view of the world and response to Emet-Selch imposing his will or memories of his past self on him inwardly. Amon developed a nihilistic view of life, not so dissimilar to the Emperor whom he served, just wanting to lead the world to demise with no deliverance. His view just simply doesn't align with his now non-existent superiors, who wanted to regain the world they lost.

The three planets shown in the Dead Ends will be visited in future expansions

Just because they were destroyed them in the present doesn't mean they can be visited in the past. As shown in Endwalker, we can go back in time to visit lands that were previously destroyed. If that's the case, visiting these destroyed planets is rather plausible.

Jullus will become a Scion.

As the first member from Garlemald.

• As of Endwalker's epilogue, it's Jossed as the Scions have publicly disbanded. Though it isn't the end of the group itself, the Scions of the Seventh Dawn name lays dormant until then.

The Ea will be the third Endwalker beast tribe.

Let's just get that out of the way, and they'll probably move the Etheirys since the Omicron will focus on building Last Dregs and we already have plenty of Dragons on Etheirys.

• Jossed: The Loporrits are the third tribe, with their story focusing on regaining purpose after the aversion of the Final Days.

Gremlins are a manifestation of the End Days seeping into the world.

• Emet-Selch's recreation of the Final Days of Amaurot featured "Terminus Criers", which resembled red-tinted Gremlins.
• Gremlins are known for their "Bad Mouth" ability, which causes Misery to its target.
• Gremlins are commonly found in ruins alongside both Voidsent and Sin Eaters, and are notably the only non-Sin Eater enemies in Holminster Switch.
  • Since Terminus Beasts have no aether at all, it makes sense why they're ignored by the Sin Eaters, which are otherwise single-mindedly obsessed with indiscriminately consuming the aether of living beings.

The Plenty had more problems than simply apathy from solving all their problems.

While the area looks like a floating paradise at the edge of space, far below it appears to be a bunch of eroding floating landmasses. It's possible that the planet the Plenty's people resided on had begun withering away in the vision you experience. No wonder they all wanted to die; the alternative was drifting aimlessly through the cold emptiness of space on a tiny island forever.

• It's also possible that, considering everyone looks identical and dresses in the same body-concealing robes, they resorted to some drastic measures to eliminate strife from their society.

Places we'll visit in the future

With a lot of locales teased that we have not seen yet, let's speculate on where we'll be headed next, whether it be on Hydaelyn/Etheirys, in the past, or on other worlds.

• Meracydia
• New World
  • Confirmed: the New World (under its true name Tural) is the setting for Dawntrail.
• The rest of Hingashi
• The Southern Isles
• Hydaelyn in various eras in the past
• The Heavens of the Twelve
• The remainder of the First
• The First in various eras in the past
• Any of the remaining Shards that wasn't detroyed by the Rejoining
• The Thirteenth / The Void
  • Confirmed. We go there for a bit in 6.2.
• More of the World Unsundered
• Dragonstar
• Alphatron
• The Ea's star
• The Grebuloffs' star
• The Karellians' star
• The Nibiruns' star
• The other stars witnessed by Meteion

Nael van Darnus will appear as a boss battle

Half way through the fight his helmet will come off revealing his male face and then he will get back up from his sister Eula Darnus

The Shoebill is Emet-Selch's Familiar

Throughout Shadowbringers, there is a shoebill that appears at random throughout the story, perfectly still and silent and just watching you. Curiously, the shoebill can be earned as a minion from the Amaurot dungeon. In Endwalker, we learn that the Ancients would occasionally create familiars to perform simple tasks for them. The Shoebill is Emet-Selch's familiar; his eyes and ears to spy on anything he desires.

6.1 will feature new trusts

Since the Scions officially disbanded but will still help each other in times of crisis, there will be others you can turn to if the others cannot come on time. You can call upon Lyse, Hoary Boulder, Coultenet, Yugiri, among others. This will reflect the new story arc of 6.1, where new possibilities are explored.

• Zig-zagged. It does feature four new Duty Support (formerly Scenario mode) party members... who are nameless guys used exclusively for A Realm Reborn dungeons and trials. As for actual Trust (formerly Avatar mode), no new characters are added.

Warrior's healing abilities can be explained as harnessing Dynamis.

In Shadowbringers, Warriors could already regenerate their own health with Equilibrium and a party member's health with Nascent Flash. But Endwalker expanded their healing capabilities significantly, allowing them to heal using Raw Intuition/Bloodwhetting and Shake it Off as well. It may not be a coincidence that Endwalker introduces Dynamis, a counterpart of Aether that allows sheer, raw emotion to become power. And unlike their more magically-inclined counterparts, Warrior is a tank job that draws strength from grit, fury, and determination to keep themselves and their party members alive. Also, in the finale of Endwalker, The Endsinger recognizes Limit Breaks as a means of wielding Dynamis. Therefore, while any class can tap into Dynamis to some extent, Warriors make the most use of it out of all of the classes.

The Nekropolis in the final zone of Endwalker is a teaser for a future plotline

When Meteion arrived in the planet she based the Nekropolis on, she found it completely empty and devoid of life, but without signs of violence, natural calamity or destruction of any kind, it was as if every single living being just up and disappeared in the blink of an eye, and the cause remains unknown. This will eventually be explored, and the cause explained, in a future plotline.

Eric is the Lahabrea we knew and loved

Basically in P12 Eric's dad goes Emperor David Bowie on our asses and we kick his ass and he dies. And do once everyone in Pandæmonium is done Eric gets crowned as the new Lahabrea afterwards or something.

• Points in favor of Ericthonios being the Unsundered Lahabrea:
  • His transformed state has a mask that resembles Lahabrea's on the top of his head.
  • The sigil directly under that mask◊—And later on the crystal Eric has at his waist◊—looks like the sigil Lahabrea's Scion of Darkness counterpart from Final Fantasy XII, Mateus', sigil◊.
  • It would explain how we went from 'master of creation magic' to 'schmuck who got owned by an old man' without the flimsy excuse of the frequent body-hopping weakening him somehow
• Points against Ericthonios being the Unsundered Lahabrea:
  • Tales from the Shadows confirms the Unsundered Lahabrea was the same Lahabrea that created the phoinix. Theoretically, Emet-Selch could be unaware of the switch, but considering the man can identify people by the specific color of their soul, this seems improbable.
  • In the Japanese Tales from the Shadows, Lahabrea is apparently called 'oji-san', which implies he was older than Emet-Selch. Given that Emet and Azem are well into their careers and Eric is still being mentored, it's probably safe to assume he's younger than them.
  • If Ericthonios is the current Lahabrea with case of Laser-Guided Amnesia, it seems strange that Themis would not mention anything about that.
  • If Eric does become Lahabrea somehow, why wouldn't he remember meeting us in the past? Elidibus has the excuse of his nature as a primal and the fact that his Pandæmonium adventures are probably only one of his many accomplishments, but Pandæmonium was Eric's whole life up to that point; one would think he would remember the events. And using Kairos again somehow seems cheap.
  • Emet-Selch is named for the Greek god of the underworld, Elidibus (probably) for a Titaness of justice, so it would be weird for our last Unsundered to be named for an obscure mortal king.
  • Endwalker has been going out of its way to subvert expectations, and having our friend Eric become our enemy Lahabrea seems too obvious a way to win sympathy for Lahabrea.

• Jossed, 'our' Lahabrea is still Hephaistos.

Modern-day Lahabrea was actually Lahabrea's evil doppelganger

Lahabrea's modern self acted a lot more like Lahabrea's dark side Hephaistos than past Lahabrea himself. It could just be that after millenia of sanity slippage, Lahabrea started acting more like the Dark Side he "cast aside"... or it could be Hephaistos managed to swap places with him sometime during the chaos of the Final Days without anyone else the wiser.

• Hephaistos is much more reckless, maniacal, and arrogant than original Lahabrea, all of which modern Lahabrea had in spades and eventually proved his downfall.
• After being found out by Themis in Pandaemonium, Hephaistos would be much more careful about his imitation if he got another chance, at least at first. His regression into his original personality would be seen as sanity slippage by the other Paragons.
• His fusion dance with Igeyorhm is very similar to the original Lahabrea's merging with Athena- something the original Lahabrea found so appalling he ripped out half his soul in disgust. It's unlikely the original Lahabrea would willingly do that again... but Hephaistos would.

The Nekropolis of Ultima Thule is from the NieR world

Just trying to rationalise that Yorha: Dark Apocalypse wasn't a waste of a raid.

Venat is the mother of Themis/Elidibus

Not only did he look VERY similar to Venat and the age difference is easily large enough, but even as the Warrior of Light primal he looks very similar to Hydaelyn. The two being mother and son would also make for another similarity between Hydaelyn and Zodiark and Cosmos and Chaos

• Bonus point, the Venat/Themis familial connection could be used as a counterpoint to the Lahabrea/Erichthonios situation.
• It would also add multiple levels of irony, including his very name. Themis is the name of the titaness of ordered families in Greek mythology. If Venat is his mother, then their family becomes as disordered as it gets.

Venat is the mother of Azem.

It's noted that she is more than twice the age current Azem and while Emet-Selch and Hythlodaeus treat her formally, they also treat her with a familiarity that we do not see with the likes of Hermes. It is also something readily seen in how she handles and converses with the Warrior of Light, seeing enough of Azem in them that she can't help but fall into her old patterns.

Concurantly the Ancients didn't have children in a traditional sense, except maybe for Venat.

With how the Ancients handle the creation of new life in Elpis it wouldn't be hard to believe that they have a set pattern or program with how they create children, using an approved plan to create new Ancients in a similar vein. Personhood is not defined by presence of a soul but by a certain aether threshold within a being. Emet-Selch and Hythlodaeus view the slim aether of the Warrior of Light indicitive of them being classed as a familiar even though they have a soul and can potentially look very similar to themselves. This holds true for Meteion as well. She is viewed curiously, but of no consequence since dynamis, not aether makes up the majority of her being.Venat could have created a child with this pattern, or she could have learned how the Ancients had children before their mastery of creation magicks and gone about that method as she is nothing if not adventurous. This could also account for Azem being considered as eccentric as they are, given that their creation was more random than anyone else born in that era.

We'll eventually get to revisit the fifth zone of Endwalker in the modern day.

The story is somewhat vague about what exactly the Sundering entailed (and please correct me if it isn't) but we've seen very little of the ruins of The World Unsundered. There are a few possible reasons for this. The series may have averted Ragnarök Proofing and everything from that period has been reduced to dust by the passage of time. Or parts of it are still around collecting mold and we just conveniently have never been there. But what I would most like to see is if Elpis and most of that world's modern civilization got shunted to one or more of the shards. Either that's where the ruins of Elpis wound up, or they aren't ruins at all and a new civilization has taken up residence!

• Shadowbringers already shown that some physical ancient ruins of Amaurot were scattered throughout the Shards, like the pillars at the bottom of the Tempest. It's possible that ruins of Amaurot are also present, but undiscovered, in the Source. As for Elpis itself, it's possible that it was destroyed during the Final Days, or crashed down due to being unable to be maintained by the power of the Ancients.
• There are some floating circular island to the northeast of Garlemald on the full map that people connected to some early concept art of Elpis; possibly that is Elpis in the modern day?
• I mean, we already visited Azys Lla. It's literally a floating science facility thing where the people there are kinda inhumane and was even ran by same dude. Plus there's the theory that Azys Lla was partially made from the remnants of Elpis.

Zanarkand will be a 24-man raid in a later expansion.

It's been confirmed that the raid series in Endwalker will be something else, but in the future this would be a good setting to include. In Final Fantasy X we get to see Zanarkand both in its prime and long after, and each version would be a separate raid in XIV. The level of technology is similar to what's seen in Amaurot and the Warrior of Light has the power to visit both the modern city of the past and ruined city of the present. The third raid would either be similar to the Inside Sin dungeon or the warped version of modern Zanarkand seen during the Braska's Final Aeon fight. Or both.

The Warrior of Light will eventually cause a Bootstrap Paradox and go back to become Azem.

I was going to be subtle and just say you're responsible for one or two events that Azem is credited for but I've played Endwalker. We're not going back to being subtle and thinking small.

• I was thinking about this and I'm going to have to go with a "No actually" here:
  • If the 'Adventurer' were to go back and become Azem and get their ass sundered right they're only like 8 or 9/14 or something of a full ancient and so you'd end up with a feedback loop of 8 or 9/14 or something of Azem's aether will get thinner and thinner with each sundering and at some point probably won't survive the sundering.
  • If the 'Adventurer' were to get sundered at 14/14 well that's ages away unless something happens that speeds it up.
  • And finally everyone after Endwalker everyone goes on about how the Adventurer is free to do and go wherever they want now, the Adventurer becoming Azem shackles them to the past and is a contradiction to all that plus Temulun would've already foreshadowed that, and traps them in time loop that sets a definate end to the Adventurer's adventurering (apart from the natural end of the Adventurer's lifespan but even they'll just reincarnate and keep adventuring).
    • Our journey will never end

The disappeared people that inhabited the Nekropolis were a race of anthropomorphic birds.

This is mainly deduced on the actual architecture of the Nekropolis:

The round-shaped doors of the buildings are noticeably offset from the ground, which is a highly unusual architectonical trait that implies whoever were inhabiting these buildings were able to at least hover from the ground or reliably jump. The door shape itself resemble the hollows of trees in which some species of birds make their nests, and the large cylindrical buildings trees themselves.

The buildings are also very vertically focused and have many floors, as well as mid-air stone bridges that connect buildings together; the multiple doors in the upper floors implies that whoever lived there was potentially expected to exit or enter their home through flight, or to at the very least be comfortable with particularly tall heights.

What makes it sure that they were anthropomorphic is in the rest of the architecture, such as the familiar chairs in the central park and the very focused-on bar. The actual liquid containers of the bar, seemingly made of some stone or porcelain material, also resemble oval eggs, further strengthening the avian connotations.

• Alternatively, they could have been a race of anthropomorphic winged insects similiar to bees; on top of the above deductions, the civilization Nekropolis seemed to have been highly communal: the number of mailboxes on buildings imply dozens of individuals lived in the same building, similiar to small 'hives', and no individual houses seem to exist. If they were actually based on bees, their mysterious dissapearance might also be a reference on the modern worrying disappearance of wild bees.

Lalafells are evolved from Ancient developed bacteria

• There's some Azys Lla flavour text about bacteria the started growing Lalafell like limbs or something, but Lalafells exist on the First, so it probably wasn't the Allagans who developed the Lalafell bacteria, and since the Ancients weren't that different to the Allagans then they probably did it or something.

The Endwalker trial series will be Last Dregs shenanigans

• In Heavensward, Stormblood and Shadowbringers the trial series was foreshadowed in some way like you can see statues of the Warring Triad at Azys Lla, the Four Lords appear on the Othard map and Estinien and friends find out about the weapon project while hanging out in Garlean territory, so one can assume that the Endwalker trials would be foreshadowed in the same way. The other option is the trial series will be the four fiends but there doesn't seem to be any foreshadowing for them, unless they end up being involved with the Last Dregs shenanigans.
  • This actually seems more likely than the Last Dregs being a Beast Tribe questline, as no MSQ or post-MSQ dungeon has ever set up a Beast Tribe questline this neatly. To add onto this theory, the actual structure of the Trial series might be fighting recreations of powerful opponents the Omicrons fought in their galactic conquest and stored in the Stigma unit memory, in order to gather enough data to recreate extinct species.
• All jossed, the Last Dregs is part of the Omicron Tribe Questline, and Endwalker has no Trial series, due to all of the post-6.0 Trials being included in the MSQ.

The relic weapon questline for Endwalker will be set on one or more other worlds that need saving.

My interpretation of Meteion's words in the finale were that she went out of her way to not only undo her song of destruction but as much of the effects as possible. That is, the writers don't want an Esoteric Happy Ending where any Terminus Beasts or other calamities already started on other worlds are implied to still be going on. But even her powers have limits; she can't bring back the dead, but in some way may be able to help the dying. There's no character who knows the routes between stars better, so it wouldn't be too shocking if a convenient doorway or two with her energy showed up. Either to allow a dying race to escape their fate or some brave adventurers to fend off the horrors. (We're picking option 2, if that's not obvious)

I also considered the characters receiving a distress beacon from a few hundred light-years away, but you're a few hundred years too late, so only someone with convenient space-time powers could help. Except that's more-or-less the setup for Pandaemonium so probably not.

Ultima, The High Seraph was the Last of Their Kind

It's highly implied in Stormblood that this setting's version of Ultima The High Seraph descended from another Star, and that's pretty much all we know about her and her Auracite. With what we learned about the state of other life-bearing Stars other than Etheirys in Endwalker, it's possible High Seraph Ultima is the last of a species of a dead or dying Star, perhaps driven to omnicidal madness. This would also make the Auracite something less 'arcane' and more the product of Sufficiently Advanced Aliens.

Alternatively or additively, Ultima The High Seraph's design looks like a bunch of entities fused together into one Nightmare Fuel being; if we take that fully at face value, and if the above is even remotely true, we might be fighting a fusion of several desperate alien species fused together into one being.

Ultima is Meteion who didn't realize she landed back on Eitherys

A bird-like entity from the stars and her Triple Triad card states that ancient people saw her as a deity that descended from the stars who is a physical representation of ruination, which sounds like Meteion's MO.

• Ok, but the offical art for Ultima looks like a bunch of beings mushed together, so what if rather than a Meteion, Ultima was a bunch of Meteia instead. How they ended up mushed together, I don't know. Go ask Altima or something Word of God said she might still be around.
• Further evidence to support this is that Ultima creates auracite and, in line with its Ivalice counterpart, transforms the user into a monstrous being fueled by a strong emotion, which is similar to how a blasphemy is created.

Continuation of Save the Queen got cut short because of Endwalker

It is commonly (and erronously) believed that Matsuno was fired because of the divisive reception of Save the Queen. Yoshida has stated that there was suppose to be another expansion before Endwalker but decided to merge both into what we have now. No details on what the expansion was suppose to be about but it can be guessed that it was meant to be the Garlemald expansion and writing a sequel to Save the Queen may have been difficult when the empire as a whole is in shambles.

• Alternatively, the hypothetical Save the Queen continuation would be locked behind Return to Ivalice and Save the Queen both of which are rather long and outside of the players who regularly keep up to date with content they would be locked out of it, which wouldn't be very good considering the gigantic Newbie Boom the game had over 2021.
• One thing is for certain, Word of God has confirmed that a Garlemald expansion was on the table.

The villain or villains of the expansion after Endwalker will explicitly not follow the Sorting Algorithm of Evil.

This is a common problem with any Post-Script Season of a shonen or similar story, where the need to constantly increase the threat level causes the writing to take a massive hit. Either the audience gets fatigued of constant action climaxes or the new antagonists are less likable and/or raise questions about where they were during the previous storyline. This is why the next expansion is so important, because if XIV wants to continue making expansions into the far future it has to prove now that it can sustain the setting past the conclusion of the main story. And endless power ramping is not sustainable.

• Seemingly confirmed with the announcement of Dawntrail: not only are the stakes lower than those of Endwalker, but they're arguably the lowest they've ever been in FFXIV's history up to this point.

More optional content will be made mandatory for story progression

In Shadowbringers, the Crystal Tower, made prominent in its titular 24-man raid of the same name, gained a lot more importance in the main storyline, culminating in the raid outright being made necessary to complete since 5.3 due to its increased prominence. This could also apply to other content like the Crystal Tower in the future—for instance, if the Ragnarok becomes more and more important in the main story, the Bahamut raid from the 2.x patches (which introduced the starship) will be made mandatory to complete because of it.

• There's also a raid questline where two out of three parts have to be completed to advance the MSQ which involves a lesbian couple where one has magic light powers and can probably world hop fine just like the adventurer and the other one will eventually remember how to world with her dark powers or something.
• Ok but what if the story just pretends you already did it and advances like that, like you can already do the Coils while Alphinaud and Alisaie are in a coma.

We'll get a Ra-la mount

And we'll get to bathe everyone in a golden glow and they'll sleep happily ever after.

6.1 will have a new zone

Well it's not a Newfound Adventure if we're going to somewhere we've already been before, and maybe it explains why Word of God is so secretive about the new dungeon and how Soken and Natsuko and co have been even more busy than usual

• Jossed: Though considering the events, new zones being added in later patches is not a stretch.

Hesperos isn't dead

As the Keyward of the Asphodelos section of Pandæmonium, he's a Reality Warper able to control the place as he sees fit. While he didn't expect to be defeated by the Warrior of Light, he fakes his death to let whatever new horrors down below soften them up, if not kill them.

We'll get a title called Triangle Strategist or something

To compliment Octopus Traveler.

The people that were transformed in Endwalker didn't actually have their aether destroyed.

When they were transformed they died as normal, but since it was explicitly under Meteion's power of dynamis, and we know that she was collecting the souls of the dead in her 'dead sun' so they could never be reborn, it's entirely possible that as soon as they were transformed, their souls were sucked up into the egg, making it look as though the aether of their souls had been destroyed like the aether forming their bodies had.

We'll find out the origin of the Thal's balls curse in Myths of the Realm

Because you know Nald'thal = Emet-Selch so we can assume Thal's balls are probably Emet's balls. Azem probably started it though just to piss of him off.

Claudien, the researcher who found the Pandemonium memory stone is Erichthonios' sundered reincarnation

• They look suspiciously similar, even having the same very dinstinctive eye colour.
• Confirmed.

Emet-Selch encouraged us to go to the Bounty on purpose

We journey to the waters of the Bounty on 6.1, discovering the portal to the Thirteenth beneath the waves. Emet-Selch knew of this portal, and knowing that with him and the rest of the Ascians gone, the voidsent will have a resurgence. He manipulated events so we find away into the portal to the Thirteenth and to make things right in that world.

Our new big bads will turn out to be familiar faces

Of the 2 characters presented on the Thirteeth, one appears to be a reaper, who may or may not be Orcus from the Reaper questline. Our other baddie in 6.1 is a Tin Tyrant with Elemental allies. He's still helmeted, but when he takes it off, it might be someone we already met way back. Considering Fandaniel was Amon all along, it wouldn't be surprising if it's someone from a Dungeon or Raid way back in Realm Reborn.

Deryk is actually one of the Twelve

He seems rather knowledgeable, knowing his way around of the Realm of the Gods to just be a "humble" explorer. He may actually be one of the Twelve Gods incognito, who instigated the trials to test the Warrior of Light. He might be the only one of the Twelve without any crazy or evil plans, and wants to keep the other gods in check.

• Considering what is known about him, and after a comparison to the members of the Twelve that have appeared, it seems likely that he would be Thaliak if this is proven true.
• An equally as likely option is Oschon, the God of Travelers. Not only is Deryk...well, an explorer and traveler, he also has long, slightly reddish hair; the Astrologian card that depicts Oschon also has him with long red hair.
• Additionally, keep in mind that while the Twelve have animal disguises, they only said that they can't be seen in their true form. They never said what their disguises should be.
• Confirmed as of 6.5. Deryk is the human disguise of Oschon, the Wanderer.

Alternatively, the baby opo-opo is one of the Twelve

There is precedence for it, with the other members of the Twelve taking animal forms.

• Jossed in 6.5. The opo-opo is just some animal Deryk—or rather, Oschon—took care of.

The various animal/critter forms of the Twelve are...

After beating Aglaia, several small critters will appear in the Omphalos, heavily implied to be the other Twelve. These likely are

• Spriggan: Byregot (Confirmed)
• Fish: Thaliak
  • Jossed, The fish is Nymeia
• Golem: Nophica
  • Jossed, the Golem is Althyk. Nophica is a Little Leannan.
• Bunny: Menphina (Confirmed)
• There will eventually be a Shoebill hanging around and it's obviously going to be Nald'thal because of the whole Emet thing they have going on.
  • Also jossed, Nald'thal is little mummy.

The Twelve have no ulterior motives; they just really want to fight the Warrior of Light

They're just too embarrassed to actually outright say it.

Underneath the armor, the Knight in Black is actually a woman.

I have no real proof of this, but it would prevent the character from being a 1:1 copy of Golbez and an interesting subversion of expectations.

• It sounds too much like Nael though.
• Alternatively, there is nothing underneath the armor.
• Jossed. Not just from the fact he was already voiced but also we found out what Golbez looked liked at the end of 6.4.

The Tataru's bizarre adventure quests will connect some of the side stories to the MSQ

So like the whole Tenzen and Ramza = Azem or Ultima, the High Seraph = Meteion/some Meteia kind of thing

• For the record, the latter has yet to be confirmed.

The Voidsent that Zenos made a pact with is The Shard of Azem that exists on the Thirteenth.

Zenos wouldn't form a pact with just any Viodsent, rather, it would have to be one of exceptional power in order to garner Zenos's attention. Considering Zenos's obsession with the Warrior of Light, it's possible that he may have been drawn to the shard of our soul that exists on the Thirteenth, which would have been a very powerful being. Also, if you look at the Voidsent's design, there is what appears to be a broken Halo above its head. Considering that Halos are usually associated with Light Is Good, and the strong association between our character and Light (we're literally called the "Warrior of Light"), and that The Warrior of Light is having dreams of this Voidsent for no readily apparent reason, it seems entirely possible that there is some connection between this Voidsent and the Warrior of Light.

• Jossed: The voidsent Made a Slave to Zenos is Zero.

The Knight in Black and the Elemental Thrones are the former heroes from Unukalhai's story.

Back in the Warring Triad story, Unukalhai explained that the Thirteenth fell to the Flood of Darkness because great heroes used the power of Auracite to capture the essence of Primals and use them as weapons, only to be corrupted by the Leaking Can of Evil Auracite proved to be. These heroes eventually mutated into Aether-starved monsters and tore apart the Thirteenth. The Knight in Black refers to how he and the Elemental Thrones struggled in the Void and how they aim to redeem themselves and the Thirteenth. They are the heroes who were corrupted and brought their shard to ruin and now seek to atone for their failure by conquering the Source.

• Jossed for three, Confirmed for one. Sidequests after the story patches show the backstories of the Four Archfiends. Scarmiglione, Barbariccia and Cagnazzo were by no means heroes. Rubicante was one of the Memorite Unukalhai spoke of.

Only sundered souls can become Reapers.

At the end of the Reaper Job quests, Drusilla says that not just anyone can become a Reaper, even with a soul crystal. Only those who have a connection to the Void, to the Thirteenth Shard, can form a pact with a voidsent. This is because the only voidsent you can form a pact with is the voidsent that is your Alternate Self, the one who has a missing shard of your own soul.

The Cloud of Darkness is the first voidsent and the source of the Flood of Darkness.

The Cloud of Darkness is tied directly to the Void itself, incapable of being destroyed in its own realm. It describes itself as all-consuming and is among the highest of voidsent hierarchy. The Cloud of Darkness is the first voidsent, the first mortal creature mutated by excessive dark aether and who spread its power across all of the Thirteenth Shard. This makes the Cloud of Darkness the counterpart to Eden, the first sin eater and the origin of the Flood of Light.

Azem created the Twelve after they left the Convocation.

It was suggested that Azem stepped down from the Convocation in order to find another solution to the impending Final Days, and the Twelve might have been their creation to combat against the hordes of Terminus beasts. Azeyma might have been based off Venat, and Nald'Thal off Emet-Selch (and possibly Hythlodaeus).

Azem wasn't as neutral to the summonings as first implied.

They were in on Venat's plan, but couldn't be one of the sacrifices to Hydaelyn because Venat needed them alive to be reincarnated into the Warrior of Light. Remember that most of what we hear of the defector who didn't take part in the summonings of Zodiark or Hydaelyn came from shades created by Emet-Selch, who obviously didn't know what Venat knew and the shades of Venat's allies in Anamnesis Anyder likewise didn't seem to know that Venat had definitive knowledge of the future.

Hrothgar were a creation of the Ancients.

In Ktisis Hyperboreia the first boss encountered is Lyssa, a concept created by an Ancient by the same name, and bears a few resemblances with Hrothgar of the present day, though much, much bigger. In a note found futher into the dungeon, it goes into how manlike the creature is, imploying tools and giving it's observers the belief that it understands their words, though it can't speak because it's throat isn't designed for it, which the note ends with suggesting they should change that.It wouldn't be much of a stretch to believe that modern Hrothgar came from the end result of that process.

Palace of the Dead was an independent attempt at reaching the Aetherial Sea.

Reference to another game aside, Nybeth here was researching ways to cheat death and bring someone back to life. The Palace of the Dead is 200 floors deep and it gets weirder the further you go in, much like the Aitiascope in EW. In fact, there's a unique enemy that looks like Nybeth called Sinking Regret and may even be him.

Omicron beast tribe quest will explain the disappearance of the Necropolis civilization

First reason is because it will take place there. Second reason is because circumstances of their disappearance are an oddity as the area was found intact as if they only vanished for a week.

• Jossed: The fate of that people remains unknown. The Necropolis is repurposed by the Omicrons and Jammingway into a café called the Last Dregs.

Labyrinth of the Ancients is Like That because Amon/Hermes got (even more) depressed

The first area names being Pools of Folly -> Demise -> Oblivion? Really specific for no clear reason. It could easily be Hermes' reflection on the short lives of the sundered. Same with the bone dragon reviving and the platinals being skeletons.

The Atomos section is admittedly harder to place, being more in line with Emet-Selch's disdain with the sundered's lack of unity (maybe that's where he got the idea), but Thanatos being the boss is some pretty obvious stuff.

The last section marks the point where Hermes went all apocalypse-happy, if all of the sudden lava is any indication. King Behemoth is the prototype for all the reused-model lookalikes now, but him dropping instant-kill meteors is reminiscent of the Final Days. This also explains why he gets a post-defeat cutscene, the only one of the non-final alliance raid bosses to have such so far.

The "Labyrinth" being called that while it's really just three straight lines with barrier shenanigans involved also makes sense under this logic. Amon thought that actually working to build a labyrinth was too hard, so he put down a couple teleporters and then left.

Bonus mini-theory: he's responsible for most of the adds (sans Xande in CT and the voidsent in Wo D). Scylla, for example, comes right the heck out of nowhere - who is this woman and why does she have dogs for heads? - but after we hear that Amon turned some dude into a man-bull hybrid, her existence makes a little more sense.

Zero's true identity is Igeyorhm

When Igeyorhm accidentally caused the Flood of Darkness, she was abandoned by the other Ascians for her failure just like Mitron was abandoned on the First. She wasn't thrown into the rift, she barely managed to escape there. The massive amount of Darkness aether caused her memories to warp and fade, and by the time she returned to the Thirteenth she had completely forgotten her identity as an Ascian.

Meanwhile, the Ascians found another shard of Igeyorhm and 'promoted' it, replacing her. That's the Igeyorhm the Warrior of Light fights in Azys Lla.

Evidence: Zero is the only one who didn't fully transform. It's unlikely her mother was the only pregnant woman during the Flood of Darkness, so her explanation about being in the womb and that's why she's only part-voidsent is unlikely. Zero is able to use 'memoria', the art of turning souls into crystals - a technique taught to the 13th Warriors of Light by the Ascians in order to cause their downfall, and one Zero would have been too young to learn if she was born at the same time as the Flood of Darkness.

Also, Zero has blue hair, the same color as Igeyorhm.

Jossed:Emet-Selch stated plainly that the 13th was a shared failure due to it being their test run/first attempt at a rejoining. Additionally an Ascian only loses their memories when they are reborn and Mitron's transformation was the basis of the Flood of Light, Igeyorhm's was not.

Athena somehow infiltrated the Convocation as Emmorololth

Emmorololth being dispersed into the Lifestream may not have been the forced metempsychosis everyone hoped for if she managed to link with Pandaemonium first. That would explain why it emerges from the Lifestream.

"Our" Lahabrea isn't the original, but the jettisoned Hephaistos

This is the easiest way to explain why he caused so much difficulty for the goals of Hades and Themis during the Astral and Umbral Eras—they had the unstable portion of Lahabrea to begin with. How it got out of its prison is open to question (managing to swap with Erichthonios or the original Lahabrea?). But alternately...

• Jossed: Lahabrea remerged with Hephaistos at the end of the Pandaemonium story to reclaim his full power. And since he had the Heart of Sabik, which only the Lahabrea who married Athena would know where it was or what it could do, it can only be "our" Lahabrea.

Lahabrea's mania was started by jettisoning Hephaistos

Depending on how severe the self-invoked psyche change was, Lahabrea could easily have begun a cascade degeneration that culminated over the millennia in being devoured by malice and spite for everything not Amaurotine.

Cagnazzo and Rubicante's pre-voidsent races.

Since these two went through Adaptational Personality Change, they would likely be the Wedge and Biggs of the Thirteenth, with Wedge the lalafell being Rubicante and Biggs the roegadyn being Cagnazzo.

• Jossed and Confirmed; Rubicante is an Au Ra and Cagnazzo was a Roe.

Even after Zero seals all four Archfiends, they'll still get out for one last battle.

[FF4]'s Giant of Bab-il has a Boss Rush against the Archfiends. The Warrior of Light will have to deal with this either in a Trial or during the 6.5 four-man dungeon.

• One detail that might support this theory is that the Warrior of Light is carrying the crystalized aether of Scarmiglione and Barbariccia. Being turned into memoria is said to be permanent, but Golbez might be able to break that rule with his new power to free them, or barring that, using the aether once he steals it to create "shades" of his Archfiends to fight for him.
• Confirmed! The trailer for 6.5 clearly shows that the four Archfiends will all be brought back in some way.

The four fiends will become our friends.

Sometime after we beat all of them and some shit happens, the WoL and friends need them for something, and we end up finding a way to let them out to help and if they try some shit we can throw Zero at them.

Azdaja will be Brainwashed and Crazy and fight alongside Golbez.

When confronted in battle, Golbez will use his power to control or puppet Azdaja to make her fight the Scions who've come to save her. This would be a Mythology Gag to the Shadow Dragon Golbez summons to fight in Final Fantasy IV.

• Confirmed, as Golbez turns her into a voidsent he can control.

Golbez is the Azem shard of the Thirteenth.

He's kinda doing that Azem/WoL/Ardbert/Tenzen/Ramza shtick with the four fiends.

Lahabrea re-joined with Hephaistos out of desperation to combat the Final Days.

It occurs to me that the Lahabrea of eld put his duty before anything else, even to his own personal detriment. Not being able to think of a solution to save the world as he was, he may have come to the conclusion that if he were whole again, he might be able to think of a plan to stop the Final Days.

Thus he re-joined with Hephaistos, damning himself in the process to save everyone else.

Jossed. Lahabrea rejoins with Hephaistos to un-brainwash Hegemone.

Which then leads to...

Lahabrea was the architect of the plan to create Zodiark.

No longer being bound by morality, he created a plan that would sacrifice half the world's population to create a "God" to save the other half. Knowing how self-righteous Hephaistos was, the reformed Lahabrea would more than likely push this plan as the ONLY way to save the star to everyone else, and sadly they all agreed.

All the previously dead Ascians in the Lifestream will come together to fight Athena in Pandaemonium.

As powerful as the Warrior is, they’re gonna need backup. It also means we get the Three Paragons at their prime, especially if Elidibus uses his own Warrior of Light form.

• Jossed: The Warrior of Light fights Athena with allies summoned with Azem's crystal. The ancients brought back in the story are made by Athena and cannot physically stop her.

Lahabrea performed a Split-Personality Merge after the sundering.

As an alternate take on the above theories, Lahabrea didn't rejoin with his discarded half until after the world was sundered. He needed Athena's knowledge and research on the soul to transcend the limits of mortal flesh. This is how the Ascians gained their power to possess mortals and travel to other Shards to work towards the Rejoining. This is also why the duty-bound stoic of the past became the cackling villain of the present, being exposed and overwhelmed by his negative emotions and Athena's dark ambitions.

• Jossed: Lahabrea remerged his soul to get his full magical power back to undo Athena's brainwashing of Hegemone.

The final boss of Pandaemonium will be a Dual Boss against Lahabrea and Athena.

P12 will be a battle against the soul remnants of Athena and the present-day Lahabrea, both seeking to overcome death itself to reach godhood for themselves. Athena will be transformed into a divine figure while Lahabrea will be demonic as a reference to the Emperor from Final Fantasy II, who split his soul in half upon death and took over Hell and Heaven.

• Jossed: Athena fights alone in the final battle, barring a few familiars. Lahabrea is never fought.

Pandaemonium was the "sound from the center of the star"

Everyone assumed the Final Days came from within the planet but this was disproven in Endwalker. During the second tier of the Pandaemonium story, we see the facility appear in the Aitiascope, essentially near the core of the planet, for unknown reasons. This could also have been a recycled plot point from before Endwalker was conceptualized.

• Jossed: The Pandaemonium in the aetherial sea is a recreation made from a piece of Azys Lla.
• Jury's still out on whether or not this was the original plan for Endwalker's MSQ. The only way we can find out is from Word of God.

The Manderville Family can unknowingly channel dynamis.

The secret to the family's fundamentally bonkers strength and feats of craftsmanship comes from the fact that they're so emotional naturally, they can manipulate dynamis energy. They aren't aware of dynamis, so dismiss their amazing feats as just talents of the Manderville line.

• Maybe, but 6.45 provides an explanation to why Mandervilles are the way they are - it's because the person who started the entire family line willingly gave his (sickly and dying) body to an alien to possess. And said possession makes its hosts significantly stronger, faster and tougher - something the Manderville descendants retained. Dynamis might still have a presence though.

We'll get a part 2 to the Omicron tribal quests.

Because we don't know what the Gordhana and other races the Omicrons annihilated were like and we don't have a Ra-la mount yet.

The Twelve are Secretly Dying

...Or are planning to do something that will cause them all to die or be forever cut off from the mortal world, explaining their insistence in visiting the mortal world and the off-hand statement that they "won't get another (chance)" to do it.

• Confirmed!

Zero is the 13ths shard of Azem

• Before EW dropped Yoshi-P made some comments about Zenos's avatar, and how Wo L was his only friend 'and maybe his avatar is some sort of variation on Wo L' (here)
  • Ok but isn't Azem's schtick is all about The Power of Friendship something all their other shards (the WoL, Ardbert, Tenzen, Ramza and so on) all have. Zero doesn't have any of that even before everything went to shit she didn't have The Power of Friendship. Even Golbez uses more The Power of Friendship than Zero.

The Ancients' original name before being made into Ascians were Lufenians

If 7.0 uses Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin as a reference point, it's likely the Lufenians are the Ancients who escaped the Final Days and started a new world. After coming back and seeing what's happened in the last several ages, they'll want to take their place back as the rightful gods of the world.

Anabaseios will include the dead Ascians in the Lifestream, as posited above

...but instead of them helping us, Athena will be using them against us.

The term (technically sans e, but whatever) describes both an inland march and the retreat from such. She has a strong connection to the Lifestream, explaining how Pandaemonium showed up near the Aitiascope. Why act now? As part of the Lifestream she's essentially "smeared across time", aware of her existence in the Unsundered World and Etheirys and experiencing both; she sensed us mucking up her plans by defeating Hephaistos in the past and moved Pandaemonium to the present to disorient those acting against her and to plan her invasion - at a time where the world has been rocked by the destabilizing Final Days and the Scions' supposed disbanding. Versions of the Three Paragons will be the normal bosses, while Athena herself will be the tier boss, planning to invade Etheirys with her twisted creations.

• Confirmed to a degree. Themis is the only one to make an appearance and technically he is only a shade using parts of Themis's soul.

Emet-Selch and Azem/the Warrior of Light fought each other several times in the past, in a deliberate ploy by Hydaelyn to slowly break the Ascian leader down

We are told more than once that throughout History, heroes chosen by Hydaelyn opposed (with little success) the Ascians and tried to stop the calamities from happening, so it's very possible, if not likely, that Hydaelyn picked fragments of her former protégé and successor's soul several times to act as her champion.

Such a thing would certainly be devastating from Emet-Selch's point of view and for his psyche: not only did he spent eons committing atrocities upon atrocities in the hope of bringing back his compatriots and loved ones, but during all that time, one of said loved ones came back over and over to try and stop him, forcing him to fight, and probably kill, several of their reincarnation over the centuries.No wonder he looks in equal parts furious and desperate by the end of Shadowbringer: his closest friend -one of the two people he owes his elevation to the Convocation of Fourteen to- kept coming back from the grave to oppose him over and over again, like a very bellicose conscience.

And perhaps this was part of the plan: Venat knew Emet-Selch well, and remembered the Warrior of Light's time in Elpis, when Emet-Selch angrily took offense at the thought of "forsaking his duty", so, as Hydaelyn, she may well have chosen a ruthless form of psychological warfare: forcing him to look into several incarnations of Azem's eyes as he slayed them to slowly grind down his resolve.

Azem's shard on the Thirteenth is Golbez.

The real Golbez, that is—the armored mage who traveled with Durante and died in the Contramemoria. When the Warrior of Light had an Echo vision of the two, Golbez's dialogue went unvoiced while Durante, Zero, and a civilian all had their dialogue voiced. Golbez also held noble ideas about the inherent goodness of people as they and Durante traveled across the Thirteenth to help where they could—a very Azem sentiment.

When one considers the bond between Golbez and Durante, one may also draw the conclusion that...

"Golbez" (Durante) is the Thirteenth's shard of Zenos.

Hear me out. Zenos has always considered the Warrior of Light to be his dearest (and only) friend. The introduction of Zero in 6.2 brought with it the question of what friendship is, as she has had to learn it. When she asks if the WoL's relationship with Zenos is friendship, the dialogue choices given the WoL range from vehement denial at worst to hesitation at best—they don't seem to consider Zenos a friend. But in 6.4, when Zero finally grasps friendship as a relationship of trust, what comes to the WoL's mind? Zenos, at Ultima Thule.

There are also superficial similarities between the two—long fair hair, deep voices, merciless in combat... Less compelling evidence to be sure, but evidence nonetheless.

Kokytus is a Call-Back to Crystal Tower

Everyone has figured out the beast form was King Behemoth but who are the other two? My guesses are Scylla (mage) and Glasya Labolas (martialist), granted they didn't exactly use the same attacks from Crystal Tower. The area is also where the real Amon was fought.

One of the remaining Ascians will still work towards a Rejoining out of delusion.

As 6.4 revealed, every shard of Zodiark died when Zodiark himself was slain on the Source. But faced with the impossibility of everything you believed and worked for gone, one of the remaining Ascians won't be able to accept the reality. Out of desperation and delusion, they will still attempt to rejoin the shard they were assigned to in the hopes that it will all somehow still work out. The Warrior of Light will have to kill them to not only save a world from destruction and prevent a Calamity, but to end the Ascian's mad suffering.

Zeromus will be a trial

Starting with Heavensward, we've been getting at least seven trial that come with mounts: 3 mandatory MSQ trials, 1 mandatory patch trial and an optional sidequest with 3 trials. Endwalker breaks this formula by not having the optional side quest this time and has three mandatory ones meaning in order to have the seven mounts, there is at least one last one to do. Plus, they would not pass off the chance to do a remix of Zeromus's theme.

• Confirmed: Zeromus will be fought in Patch 6.5's trial, the Abyssal Fracture.

Zeromus's EG form will be fought in the Extreme version

This version of Zeromus is only fought in the Gameboy Advance/PSP versions, though in terms of Trials/Extremes for Endwalker, it would be harder than even Savage Athena.

• Alternatively, Zeromus EG will be saved for a future Ultimate raid centred around the Four Fiends and Golbez.
• Jossed, Zeromus has the same appearance in the Extreme version.

Dawntrail

Dawntrail Job speculation.

List your ideas for the upcoming Jobs in 7.0 Dawntrail. It has been announced that the two Jobs will be a Melee DPS and a Ranged Magical DPS.

• Weapon Master: A Walking Armory like Firion from Dissidia Final Fantasy. Yoshi-P's T-shirt in the Fanfest was for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The turtles all wield unique weapons, so the Job will carry several small weapons on their person, using a different weapon for every skill to chain combos.
• Corsair/Swashbuckler: It's speculated that the shirt is hinting that the new Job will use Scouting gear, with the TMNT representing the Pirates Versus Ninja trope. The Warrior of Light is also wearing a thin sword at their hip in the teaser trailer, suggesting a possible Sword and Gun combo.
  • Both jossed, the melee DPS is the Viper, who - while it has a swashbuckler-esque aesthetic - is more of a hunter than it is a Weapon Hunter or Corsair.
• Green Mage: It's possible that the shirt might additionally be a hint towards the Caster Job - not due to the name, or the weapons, or the fact they're turtles, but the color green. A Green Mage in this case would be a caster who specializes in poison and affliction-based spells.
  • An additional heavy hint of this is the clover accessory Krile finds at the end of 6.5's MSQ - why is it relevant? Because the Green Mage in Tactics A2 has a clover on their cloak.
• Pictomancer/Painter: Each of the Ninja Turtles are named after famous artists, after all.
  • Confirmed.
• The Jobs for the expansion have been revealed to be the Viper and Pictomancer. The Viper wears Scouting armor and fights with twin blades that can connect into a Double Weapon a la Zidane Tribal in Dissidia Final Fantasy. Pictomancer is the Magical DPS, taking direct inspiration from Relm Arrowny, who thus far is the only Pictomancer in Final Fantasy's history.

Erenville will be the next member of the Scions. He might fulfill a ranged dps or healer role in Trust.

Golbez was the Thirteenth shard of the Warrior of Light...And Durante was Zenos'.

The real Golbez never being voiced and their face being purposefully hidden feels a bit odd, and their All-Loving Hero status would definetly fit a shard of Azem, while Durante's almost obsessive devotion to his best friend, long blond hair, and distinctly raspy voice would fit a shard of Zenos.

Travanchet is Halmarut.

This is running on a dramatic idea of Travanchet (a) being an incognito Convocation member and (b) never losing his body since 1.0. As of Endwalker, the only members of the Twelve who aren't known to have switched bodies after that time (and might still be alive) are Pashtarot and Halmarut. Pashtarot, however, was revealed to be using a Hyur body in the 2.0 stinger, not an Elezen body. That leaves Halmarut.

We're going back to the Thirteenth or something in Dawntrail

Well it seems that CBU3 is being quite about zone 5 and zone 6 again, and the other time CBU3 hid zone 5 from us it was a gigantic Wham Episode, so if it was just some island area why would they not show unless it was a massive spoiler.

The technologically advanced zones teased for Dawntrail are not precursor Lost Technology - instead, they belong to colonizers from another Shard.

All of the technological areas, as well as the Destroyer boss, don't look anything like the Allagan Empire's technology nor anything that could have belonged to the Ancients, and one of the dungeons teased looks like a very well-mantained, advanced military base - leading me to theorize that the main antagonistic faction in Dawntrail will be a civilization from a technologically advanced Shard that managed to master Rift travel on their own - leading to them expanding into the Source. Either that, or aliens.

A technologically advanced Shard as an antagonist would also work well in creating a new overarching saga now that the majority of the big enemy factions, Garlemald and the Ascians, are no longer in play, and would pave the way to build up to greater inter-Shard conflict.

The Arcadion raid series is a Game Within a Game and it's going to get really meta.

The Arcadion is actually just a giant VR MMORPG, and the structure we see in the keyart is the location you go to play the game - the opponents are virtually created raid bosses from said game, and the other players are - quite literally - other players that you group up with to defeat said raid bosses.

• Also it's run by an ascian, it's literally in the artwork

Dawntrail will feature heavy references to Final Fantasy IX in its story.

This all comes down to the name of the hyper futuristic city, Solution 9, which gets its name from one of Zidane's Dyne abilities he can use in Trance. In addition, one billboard seen in the area trailer happens to have Eorzean script that, when translated, reads "Soul Supply". This lines up with how in IX, one of the overarching plots of the game was the assimilation of the planet Gaia by the planet Terra by replacing Gaian souls with Terran ones.

It's possible that Solution 9 the city could have been used for a similar purpose in the past, taking unfortunate Etheirys souls that died in close proximity to it to replace them with other souls, and the final arc of the game will involve going to XIV's version of Terra to stop the main antagonist from restarting the process and killing all life on Etheirys.

Solution Nine is/was the City of Gold.

Long ago, someone found the fabled golden city. But rather than reveal the discovery and claim the throne, they exploited the find and built Solution Nine in its place. Gold is a building material in computer circuitry and other electronics, and Solution Nine is as technology advanced as an Allagan city, if not more so. So the city of gold was likely torn down and used in the construction of the new city.

• Alternatively, there never was a "literal," El Dorado style City of Gold, and Solution Nine has always been the high-tech city that's it's been. It's just that, over generations, the truth was lost, and eventually the legend of the City of Gold came to be.

The theme of the expansion will be Tradition vs Progress.

Since Dawntrail's story seems to be in 2 parts, the first half will deal with Tradition, most likely by dealing with the successor crisis in Tuliyollal, and the second half will deal with Progress in northern Tural, most likely involving Solution Nine.

It will show the good of both but also the danger of focusing solely on one or the other, showing that a balance between the two must be made for people to thrive.

The Big Bad of each part will be people who are uncompromising in their beliefs, one believing that "We've always done it this way, so we don't need to change it!" and the other believing that "Nothing of the old ways are useful, throw everything away and embrace the new age!"

Solution Nine will involve Ascians again

It's been pointed out that the alphabet used in Solution Nine is the Proto-Alphabet seen in the World Unsundered as mentioned in the lorebook. Perhaps this time, there will be no Allagan involvement.

Julyan is the descedant of the Mandervillians.

So basically for the Mandervillian bloodline to be over, it would mean each Mandervillian only had one child, and in a world that probably doesn't have contraception or abortion that seems unlikely. So somewhere down the line someone had a child who didn't become heir to the empire or whatever and that bloodline eventually led to Julyan, which also means Hildibrand is still a Mandervillian anyway.

• Godbrand's recording actually references him having two children, and Godbert muses for a bit about what became of the seemingly forgotten second Manderville bloodline. It's likely that Julyan is descended from that original cadet branch.

True names of the remaining Convocation members

• Nabriales. His ability to control the flow of time seems to be unique to him. Thus, it would make sense for him to be Aion, the incarnation of time's inevitability and cycling in Greek thought.
  • As said in Encylopedia Eorzea, Nabriales' office presided over the martial arts, meaning it might have alternatively been Ares.
    • Alternatively still, he might have been Kratos, personification of strength.
  • Still another possibility is Poseidon, as being the god of earthquakes implies intense strength right away. Furthermore, considering his position as Top God before the Zeus sect gained ascendance, it's possible that between Nabriales and Pashtarot, one was/is Poseidon and the other Ares. Pashtarot-Poseidon would make sense with the conceit of the Top God being responsible for the most important edicts.
• Igeyorhm. Her office presided over rhetoric and logic. Thus, epistemology might have been her ultimate sphere, and with it knowledge itself. The closest match seems to be Mnemosyne, goddess of memory and mother of the Mousai.
• Emmorololth. Her office was medicine. While Hygieia might come to mind, she was more about cleanliness than medicine proper. One possibility is to match her to a more metaphorical sort of medicine—maintaining the order and function of society, like maintaining the body's blood and lymph flow. This leads to Hestia, goddess of the hearth and civic order.
• Halmarut. His office was agriculture and plants. The brothers Triptolemos and Demophon seem likely candidates, the sons of the rulers who took Demeter in while she was mourning the initial loss of Persephone. Triptolemos essentially became her prophet, while Demophon was the boy she had tried to burn the mortality out of.
• Pashtarot. His jurisdiction was establishment and enforcement of law, and Halone, the war deity of the Twelve, had once been a candidate for the post. Ares fits perfectly, both as a warrior like Halone and being associated with protection and Themis in his native Thrakia.
  • As mentioned above, Poseidon as the pre-Zeus Top God also fits for responsibility of issuing edicts.
• Altima. She governed the arts. Mnemosyne seems from here to best match to Igeyorhm, so Aphrodite in her role as goddess of beauty—seeing art as a way to propagate beauty, and not just visual beauty, through society—is the next fit.
• Deudalaphon. He's evidently the "Innovator" connected with Arcadion, but finding deities associated specifically with novelty is not an easy thing. It may be better to select a god who's effectively a polymath. This most likely means Apollon, even given the case below for that name or an associated epithet being best given to Azem instead.
• Azem. While giving them a canon original name is arguably counter to being redefinable by the player, there is an argument to be made for Nemesis, despite popcorn enemies of the same name assisting Thanatos in the Labyrinth of the Ancients. "Nemesis" is in fact a neuter name, and the deity herself presided over the allotment of weal and woe. Azem's travels, then and now, were about ensuring as many as possible knew weal, and certainly the present day also involves dispensing woe to the wicked that the weal might not be threatened.
  • I would argue Apollon would be a better guess, given the various connections with the sun made in-game. It could also tie into how the game encourages the player to play multiple roles, just as how in mythology Apollon had a wide patronage (ex. archery, music, boxing, medicine, crops and herding).
    • "Apollon" is a little sticky for being a strictly masculine name on account of the -on ending. However, his epithets may not be so confined, not even the ones ending in -os, as Artemis had a few of those. Three strong possibilities are Aigletes ("Light of the Sun"), Phoibos ("Bright"), and Phanaios ("Lightgiver").

Tuliyollali will be Al Bhed.

Wuk Lamat says that Tural's Common Tongue is structurally similar to the language of the Three Great Continents, so what better way to demonstrate that than with X's iconic Cypher Language?