Let’s be real here: We’re not actually going to know the next destination for Final Fantasy XIV’s next expansion for a while now. Assuming it gets announced at the upcoming fan festival, that announcement is going to actually come later than usual, and even if we get some pretty strong hints in the next patch that isn’t exactly landing next week. In short, at the moment I am speculating about something that is not exactly landing next week; I’m trying to look a little further out.

Still, the ending of Dawntrail was pretty darn decisive, and it left us without a whole lot of obvious directions for our next destination. So I’ve opted to go a little early this time around and start thinking about where we could be headed next, since I think there are three pretty solid candidates at the moment based on how the last patch ended. Odds are low we’ll do all three in a single expansion. But where will we go?

Ilsabard

I’ve mentioned this before, but one of the things that did bother me about Endwalker was that it was clearly more concerned with making sure we saw all of these areas that had long been plot-relevant rather than having them connect in any meaningful way. Ilsabard is a big continent, and with the fall of Garlemald there’s plenty of opportunity for adventure to be had, doing everything from sorting out the potential lingering legions to helping the remnants of the land’s people re-establish their own nations.

Now, the main reason not to go here is twofold. First of all, there’s not necessarily much indication that many of the nations here are necessarily related to our problems; while the Eorzean Alliance is helping the capital recover, that doesn’t inherently mean there’s a drive to get the whole nation back under control. The other is that it’s definitely going to be contentious. Garlemald is a villainous faction, but that doesn’t mean everyone who was subject to the nation is evil.

But the fact remains that there’s a ton of stuff to explore in this region, loads of areas we haven’t actually been to, and a whole continent that has been shaken by the loss of the central power that collapsed shockingly fast when you really think about it. There’s plenty of opportunity for us to head out here and the potential for larger-scope villainy abounds, especially with the close ties various portions of the land have to the Void.

Meracydia

One of the reasons that Meracydia keeps coming up is because it’s the perpetually referenced-but-unseen continent in the game’s lore, and now that we’ve been to Tural it’s the only one we haven’t yet visited at all. This isn’t entirely surprising; after the Allagan invasion the continent has clearly been on hard lockdown, and no one seems to go in or out of the region. Parts of the landmass are supposedly still a wasteland, but that honestly only raises further questions.

In fact, it raises a lot of questions because we have no idea of what might have been happening down there. The most recent witness we have is Azdaja, and wouldn’t you know it, this expansion had a moment reminding you about her if you had somehow let that slip from your mind-prison. And if the whole continent really were an utter wasteland, there wouldn’t be people there to repel any would-be explorers in the first place, which there clearly are.

So what’s going on down there? Honestly, it could be almost anything. We could head to the continent and find that there’s still a war raging against the Voidsent. We could find more advanced or more savage tribes. There could be almost anything happening there, and the important thing is that absolutely nobody knows at this point.

That would probably be the biggest reason not to go, though. After all, we have no idea what’s going on down there. We have no allies or enemies, we have no pressing reason to head there, and attempting to head there gets would-be explorers violently repulsed. So why bother? We’d need a pretty good reason to head that way and presumably some way of landing at the continent without getting killed in the process, which requires a bit of justification. Is that coming? It certainly could be, but we just don’t know yet.

Another shard (aside from ones we’ve visited)

At this point, we have a pretty clear vision of three shards, but there are other shards still out there that have not been rejoined. You might think we’d spend more time exploring the Ninth, or we’d head back to the Thirteenth, but the former is in a stable state as far as we know and we don’t yet have the tools to really solve the latter. So why wouldn’t Y’shtola want to use the interdimensional key to jump-start her research and explore another shard?

The key has been a major plot point all through the Dawntrail patches, and the implication seems to be that Calyx and the Ascians he’s working with need it for something they can’t do without it. Is it currently impossible for the Ascians to travel between shards without it now that Zodiark is no more? Or do they have other plans? We know that whatever they’re trying to accomplish can’t be another rejoining, but we have no idea what they would even want now; it’s just clear enough that they’re still manipulating events and trying to accomplish something just the same.

I’ve said before that whatever it’s like the next time we hop to another shard, it’s not going to be akin to how Shadowbringers threw us there as a sort of isolated landmark. It would not surprise me if some of the post-Dawntrail story development is related to making the First more accessible from the Source, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if this marks a new era of hopping between dimensions. And sure, I might want to finish filling in the world map, but I can hardly blame the writers if they want to explore more reflections.

Of course, the other flip side is that just like Meracydia, we currently have no real reason to head to any other reflection. There are two we actually have contact with, and so the odds of just deciding to take a jaunt on to another reflection would need a lot of narrative setup when both of the existing ones are problems that need some solving. I just still think it’s a realistic possibility.

So what do I think is most likely? I have no idea. I could be wrong about all of the above and the next expansion actually does bring us right back to the Void and partying up with Zero. We’re going to have to see what story hints we get first.

Feedback, as always, is welcomed via mail to eliot@massivelyop.com or down in the comments. Next week, let’s talk about something that this expansion has actually removed from its content network and how that highlights a problem I’ve mentioned before, because we officially have now waved farewell to a trial series for two expansions in a row.

The Nymian civilization hosted an immense amount of knowledge and learning, but so much of it has been lost to the people of Eorzea. That doesn’t stop Eliot Lefebvre from scrutinizing Final Fantasy XIV each week in Wisdom of Nym, hosting guides, discussion, and opinions without so much as a trace of rancor.