FFXIV: The Next Chapter 

Two words shall forever define 6.1 for me... "Froth" and "Foam"

If you pay attention during 6.1 you'll see Estinien always had a reason for "overpaying". Turns out he was never bad with money, and was just hiding his charitable side.

Something to keep in mind on Zenos's voidsent is that it got BLASTED by the song of "Hope and Renewal" by Metion. What is the first thing it says? "I am returned...to this realm bereft of saviors." I am leaning towards the Zenos voidsent as an ally.

Some hero’s of the 13’th wielded the power of auracite a crystal that can bestow the power of a primal but it also eventually turns the user into one. We would see the potential and dire consequences of auracite use for ourselves in the Ivalice raids along with other mysteries.

One thing to touch on also, which I thought of. The 13th could be this expansions "Eureka" or "Bozja". Short forays into the 13th, where we have a big area full of things to do, including bosses, story, probably a raid at the end, and creating a new weapon as our Relic Weapon this time around.

Throne of water: I shall drown the world! WoL:...I can breathe underwater though. Throne of water:...wait that's illegal.

Long time FFXIV players know that you can actually delineate which content will be a part of what by what is and isn't voice acted. The fact that Zenos' previous void avatar was voiced means that it will most likely be a part of the MSQ while the fact that Golbez and his ilk WASN'T voice acted means that they will likely be a part of trial series for the expansion which typically includes 3 trials and a personal instance battle. Of course, Golbez himself might actually end up in the MSQ given his possible connection to a certain dragon brought up multiple times in the 6.1 MSQ but the 4 fiends will most assuredly be a part of the trial series of the expansion.

Kain's definitely the "first" dragoon for most FF fans outside of Japan. They planted the seed with Ricard in FF2 (including his last name being Highwind, IIRC) and him being the last of the dragoons, but he doesn't have Jump or anything else that's become iconic with the job since FF3.

Yeah, Zenos’ Reaper Voidsent probably will be a significant individual/soul. If it’s not the 13th’s shard/reflection of Azem, then the next most likely option I would guess is that it’s Zenos’ own 13th shard/reflection. Azdaja being enslaved/turned into a minion of FFXIV’s Golbez is definitely an interesting theory, also one could argue that the architecture and symbols the Four Archfiends utilize resemble the silhouette of a dragon, which I wonder is significant. But I could also see the Azdaja plot going somewhere else. Also I wonder if Golbez and the Four Fiends will differ from average Voidsent, like maybe they were among those former heroes of the 13th who became corrupted by the Auracite they wielded.

The fact that they didn’t kill any of the scions during the 6.0 MSQ gives me hope that they wouldn’t just off one of them in his patch cycle, just as we’re setting up for a new adventure. Plus, Estinien and Y’shtola have had several death scares now, neither of them need another. I also agree that killing Estinien without Alphinaud there to give a tearful farewell wouldn’t sit right with me.

One thing to consider that kind of cements this theory is the fact that when Fandaniel first appeared before Zenos, Zenos activated his resonant power and commented on the color of Fandaniel's soul. Assuming then that he was able to do this with his borrowed echo (which may have activated a latent ability in his bloodline), then he would have also seen the color of the WoL's soul when he fought us at the end of Stormblood. And given that the color of the WoL's soul has been described as "distinctive," it's no longer that far of a leap for Zenos to have picked out the 13th's Azem and formed a pact with it.

Imo the 4 thrones could be EW's side trials(4 fights, like the 4 Weapons in ShB's, 4 lords in StB) and the voids camp could be an outpost zone like terncliff for ShB

The voidsent being Azem is such an exciting theory. I would love to see that

While I understand the idea they might have Estinien follow Kain's story seeing as it would be another call back to ff4, seeing as that already happened I feel they wont do that again. However I could see Estinien could get a Holy Dragoon upgrade to avoid such a fate, al la Kain from ff4:The After Years. The voidsent is something that wondered about during the MSQ. Why did Zeons have something much different to what the player could get, but it had no story importance... felt off to me. I'm glad to see they are going to use it for something storywise. Also with it returning to the void means Zenos is dead on the source. If it's a fallen Azum then it will become more important as the Void becomes more of a focus. Wonder if he might fuse with them or not.

Cool potential detail. Zenos' Voidsent can be a potential Azem but their design is very similar to how the Occuria looked in FF12. But 6.1 is full of FF4 stuff you shout, well that's the fun part, the Occuria created the Espers in FF12, one of which, The Condemner, is called Zeromus. Zeromus is the mastermind in FF4 who mind controlled Golbez. That's not all though, we know that the 13th fell due to a missuse of Auracite to summon Espers... See where this is going? Now for the absolute 5 head stuff, the line that Zenos' Voidsent says about the world being bereft of saviours mirrors one of Zenos' last lines about how we intended to return to a world hailed as a hero. To me, this may imply the Voidsent has in part, took on the thoughts or will of Zenos. Zemus, when defeated in FF4 becomes a lingering will of pure rage called Zeromus.... The Voidsent may be Zemus who is also an Azem shard, but because of interactions with us and Zenos it has become Zeromus. Boom.

"An Azem who couldn't summon friends when he needed to" this line is so much more heart wrenching that I would have expected.

I think the reason the WOL dreamed about Zenos's voidsent is that they formed a connection with it when Zenos stole the WOL's body. Plus if it really is a part of Azem then that connection would be further enhanced.

Maybe the 13th will start as EW's Bozja/Eureka. We're only in there for a short amount of time due to the Duty Timer, and it fits the theme of pushing forward through an unfriendly force/terrain.

I have an idea that they might make a zone like bozja from the 13th and we might get the 4 elementals as the next trials. But that's my thoughts on that.

I love the idea of Zenos' voidsent being Azem's 13th shard. I really want to see the WoL eventually become a full soul over the years. The worlds might not rejoin but we should. It would be amazing, and account for our power continually increasing.

Definitely complete all the Shadowbringers role quests if you haven't. Especially with this new focus on the 13th.

I'm not sure I would say that the first vision we had of Zeno's voidsent was a dream our WoL had. While it does appear to presented as such, our WoL shows absolutely no reaction to it at all when they wake up. We're even prompted about having had a pleasant dream and we say nothing and don't react negatively at all. In previous cases where our WoL has had some some of disturbing dream, the game makes it pretty obvious it was, well, disturbing. As for Golbez and the Fiends, it's possible that another parallel to FF4 is in order as, in that game, Golbez is actually the main character Cecil's brother. Stop me if you've heard this before, but a warrior of darkness with unruly companions/followers trying to do what they can once given the opportunity to save "their star" by rebalancing the aether of their shard. While it's pretty unlikely Golbez is our brother, it might be that he's our shard.

"(...)[the developers'] tone in the Famitsu interview is very much that Zenos is dead. Dead, dead, dead, gone for good." At the end of 5.0, when Elidibus is alone on the moon after being forced out of Zenos' body, he says "Emet-Selch... gone. Lahabrea... gone. I alone remain - the last of the unbroken." It is also the same way he tells Emet-Selch about Lahabrea fate in one of the short stories, namely "Lahabrea is gone." I reread the snippet of the inverview which is shown, and one thing that caught my eye is that they state he is dead, but not that he is "gone". This distinction I find important since Zenos has been called "an Ascian in all by name" by Krille. Zenos is dead and his body is in Ultima Thule, but what of his soul? Did it go to the Aetherial Sea, is it wantering around in Ultima Thule, did it's aether disperse in the dynamis or has it become eaten by the reaper avatar? Or perhaps even become a stowaway soul on said avatar? Considering the words the avatar spoke, it seems some part of Zenos is still remaining, be it physically or metaphorically. As a final note, Golbez is using Varis' animations (at least for sitting and capeflipping) while Golbez footsteps are the same as Zenos'. Now, this could all be a coincidence, but I would like to point out the last time Zenos' body was "missing", another being decided to "repair" it for use...

one theory ive crafted is golbez is actually the piece of azems soul from the 13th, and the four archfiends were his "party of adventurers" along with unukalhai and cyella, and once we defeat golbez, his soul will rejoin with ours

Slaying gods and opening void gates, I feel like 6.1 is a very Zenos idea of a chill, humble adventure

They won't corrupt Estinien again, to me his perfect ending will be to drink dragons blood to turn himself into a big ass dragon, maybe Nidghog Reborn? But good. He does this to turn the tide and it goes back to the plot point that all of Ishgard elezen have the potential to turn into dragonkin.

I assumed that "Golbez" and the Fiends were the WoL party of the 13th, twisted by auracite, hence why the black knight is one of our fragments. The voidsent could be Zenos' fragment, hence why they could compete with the fusion of WoL+Ardbert in strength.

My personal theory about Zenos's voidsent is that it's Zemus, the guy who was pulling Golbez's strings in Final Fantasy IV proper. The crown of thorns being an allusion to his cloak. The pale, sullen face is certainly there and I feel like Zemus's hatred could have led him to make a pact with Zenos. But truthfully, anything could happen!

Not many may have picked up in this but I might suggest the quest you unlock after doing every Shadowbringers role quest. It may surprise you what it reveals. ^^

Something in 6.0 that really stuck with me was the the prophecy we recieved from the Mol wisewoman, about two Suns battling, one burning bright and one cold and dark. I assumed Zenos was the cold one since it explains a lot about him, but there should only one Azem shard per reflection. I could see it easily being the voidsent instead, but that still doesn't explain why he's got all the combat wanderer side of Azem. Wondering if maybe Emet pulled some wacky soul stuff

Impressive work with the editing and the reaper avatar sequence. It really stood out to me in this video!

One thing I wanna say about the Four Fiends/Elemental Lords/whatever you wanna call em since they get a new title in almost every version of FF4: After you defeat them individually, they come back later on in a combined form called Geryon. So I get a feeling we'll have trial fights against the four split up, and Geryon, and Golbez probably with his shadow dragon. They could even mirror the "Golbez paralyzes everyone, summons the shadow dragon to kill the heroes, then they get saved" by having Vrtra come through to save us like Rydia does in FF4. Although I think that'd probably be too predictable for FF fans.

I'm of the belief that if there is a Shadow Dragon, it would be Vrtra's sister, just so he can experience that grief all over again after being given hope at finding her, because the FFXIV writers love to rip out our/the characters' hearts and show them to us before crushing them.

Something interesting to keep in mind going forward, the devs said that Krile and Thancred are going to have a major focus for this first part of the new story We’ve gotten a little bit of Krile (plus the alliance raid). but Thancred took a backseat, so I’m curious what we’re doing with him if he’s gonna be focused

That was honestly super interesting, as someone who keeps track of the lore this was a great video to watch, it scratched an itch I never knew I had. FF14 lore is just phenomenal.

Something i feel like you may have overlooked when you said "Perhaps the 13th fell before any heros could rise up": I believe it was stated somewhere during the 6.1 MSQ - but there were the heroes in the 13th, but they got corrupted by their use of auracite summoning primals and became into the villains, and their power quickly created the darkness that consumed the world. I reckon they summoned the primals into themselves and became the archfiends of fire/water/earth/wind you see as well as the black knight being the original "warrior of light" of the 13th and his corruption inverting and strengthening that aspect to bring the flood of darkness.

a little side-note Bell. the female Ascian from HW is the one that drowned the 13th in darkness by accident.

I thought the Question of, could emet have found a way, was purely about Emet restoring his memories of elpis

My money's on Y'shtola getting mind corrupted. They were focusing a little too much on her enthusiasm and curiosity of the void not to use that as a storytelling heel.

Estinien already had his Kain heel turn when he became the host of Nidhogg as you said. To do it again would be way too cheap and underwhelming. Yes I know Kain had multiple betrayals in the OG 4, but that game is nearly 30 years old and the first real story focused FF. So it gets a pass. You can't pull that shit these days lol.

I remember in one of the pre endwalker interviews, Yoshi-P mentioned that the dark spirit that's part of Zenos's reaper class is a 'New friend' for him, so I'm guessing that's what this is.

im so happy were finally getting Bellular speculating on FFXIV lore! super fun

Ngl, I played "FF4, Appearance of Golbez's Four Lords of the Elements" directly after the little "look behind the enemy lines"-clip. And I will be so happy if everything goes exactly as it is already in my head.

The Shadowbringers story hidden behind the crafting/gathering/Role Quesrlines… you NEED to get that unlocked!

Great video man. That voidsent theory has my head spinning

The "Estinien being corrupted" thing was already done for the lvl 50 DRG quest and then again in 3.3 as you say.

So remember the stormblood patches in the build up to SHB? The headaches, the purple screens? The creepy voices telling us to “throw wide the gate, that we may pass”? Yeah I don’t think that was just g’raha pulling us to the first, i think in him pulling us to the first, he inadvertently gave someone on the void a temporary direct line to our minds.

I think the Four Fiends and the reaper avatar are separate contents. The four fiends may actually be the trial series of Endwalker in the same vein as The Warring Triad, The Four Lords, and The Sorrows of Werlyt for HW, SB, and a SHB respectively. The reaper avatar may actually be part of the MSQ and the prevailing theory that it is the thirteenth’s sundered soul of Azem is a very good plot guess. I would have said that it maybe the reason Zenos had dreams of the first Final Days but I remembered he already have those long before he picked up his reaper weapon.

8:15 - They are called the aether starved because the element of darkness (from the Source's interpretation of the elements) constitutes stagnation. They are pure stagnation. Since aether constitutes all things, they thirst for aether for relief from their stagnation.

I hope they don't go a corruption route with Estinien, it's been done. I'm definitely expecting Adjaia to initially be an enemy, corrupted by prolonged exposure to a void-soaked world, but that we'll find a way to bring her back. We've canonically solved tempering and proven it works on Tiamat, with her own years of exposure to corrupting aether, so we should be able to do the same with Adjaia provided we can subdue her first. Estinien will likely take the lead on that, being as close to dragons as he is. If Zenos' former avatar does end up being the Azem of the 13th that'll be interesting... especially if you've played the DRK questline. For reasons I can sum up briefly as: "dealing with the darker self of the WoL".

We already learned that Zenos can overtake souls with the powers he copied from Krile, so it makes sense that his soul after the death of his own body just swapped to the next creature it could overtake which would be the voidsend. We saw Zenos doing this before where he swapped into a dead Elezen from Ala Mhigo and then into a garlean with which he confronted Varis and Elidibus to get his body back. So my theory is that his soul is like the Ascians immortal unless you destroy it with other means like an white auracite, so he can just after every death transcend into other bodies.

If anything I am looking forward to when we face the Four Fiends and to hear FFXIV version of their theme

I wonder how the researches on the First to cure the Thirteen could be used in the MSQ as it's very side content. It would be weird not to bring back this part of the story.

@4:55 Yeah, Estinien would start rivalling Kain with the amount of times being mind controlled if they did it again, and he's got too much character development to have him fake being a traitor of some kind. So I think some aspects like Estinien are going the FF14 Ivalice vs FF12 Ivalice route, where the parallels will be much more loose and maybe even not terribly present. The Bangaa characters in 14's Ivalice are nothing like their 12 incarnations, likewise for Basch who was a major character in 12. I'm going to guess Golbez & Co are the 13th's other corrupted Warriors of Light, and the 13th has its own Moon and Zodiark shard yet.

I like to think the Reaper Avatar we use is the 13th Azem shard.

amazing video, i always wanted you to cover current FFXIV content, very glad you gave the game a fair shot

The Ascians may have been named after them, but the heroes of the 13th have way tighter narrative ties to FFTactics / 12's Lucavi.

1:37 Diadem, Eureka and Bozja would all really like to make your acquaintance. No new zones? You might want to take a peek into those areas. Though Diadem was revamped for Ishgard Restoration, it was a "whole new zone" as is Eurkea and Bozja.

I'm super curious as to whether the war Golbez or the Knight in Black meant was against the Void or against the Source/or and other reflections.

I was under the impressions that Unukalhai was the 13th Shard of Azem, but I am not sure if that was confirmed or not. But I 100% agree that Azdaja is going to be corrupted before we find her, or transfor right before the party's eyes, possibly trying to save her little brother.

I forgot that Zenos was supposedly Emet’s grandson, and what that could mean. Heck, maybe that’s why he’s obsessed with the WoL being his BFF. PS the thought of the Azem shard from the 13 is terrifying and I’m gunna be thinking about that all day.

I agree, something will happen with Estinien, don't forget they always say he is much changed, a different being because of his fusion with Nidhoog, that has to come into play somehow.

I would go a step further and say that not only is it our 13th reflection, but that it's the reflection that has the memories of the original Azem. We don't know what happens to a being that becomes a voidsent, but I wouldn't put it past the devs to make it a case where all of your original memories are restored in the process. That would elevate the character from being another Ardbert into something completely different that serves to provide the warrior of light with character development. It would also make the character far more tragic. Having already lost their original world and now also losing the 13th, powerless to do anything to stop it. Our WoL has always "won", so a contrast with the version of us that has always "lost" would be really interesting to see.

I'm pretty sure the 13th will be a progression zone like Eureka or Bozja. Where you gain actual resistance levels to withstand the void

All I know is GOLBEZ IS HERE and I cannot be more excited.

The bread crumbs to the story of what's next is exciting. I also think that estinien plays the dumb card but he really is pretty smart. I mean the dude had to put smart dragons for years he is also one for self sacrifice for the better good, why he took on the corruption of nidhogs eyes to himself so no other would have to. He isn't one to say he is suffering as well so when he has pain or something like that he keeps it to himself and doesn't want to burden others because of it, the main reason why he is often alone by himself. All the other stuff I can see happening and it makes a lot of sense

I gotta agree that Zenos' voidsent is our 13th Shard. It would make sense that Zenos' unrelenting obsession with us would pair him with a parallel of ourselves, right? What better twist of fate than him seeking power in us to fight us?

I imagined the four archfiends would be considered the heroes of the thirteenth, similar to the Dark World heroes in FF3. Almost like a combination of both storytelling assets. In the end it still creates sympathetic villains for us to fight. They fight for their world and we fight for ours. It'll be interesting to see how the writers spin the tale :)

I really liked the Shadowbringers void quests but I'm unsure how they'll be able to integrate it into this storyline since its optional content. And they can't just make it optional because it would force everyone to level at minimum 4 (3 if its SMN/SCH) jobs to 80 and do 4+1 role quests and the Heavensward trial series just to be able to start the Void questline. Hopefully since we haven't heard anything about how Relics will work in Endwalker, the 13th will be our new Eureka zone and we can go there.

Plot Twist: Zeno's Voidsent is our Azem reflection in the 13th Edit: The chapel reminds me of the one where people were going to sacrifice themselves for Zodiark To stabilise the world from darkness they created the 4 crystals in a manner similar to Zodiark (but since they're reflections, they had much less Aether) - regardless, this reflections moon will be important

To me the areas we see of the 13th kind of resemble a zone in FFXI called "The Walk of Echoes", minus the giant Atomos in the sky eating a timeline. I'm less fixated on where the voidsent/Golbez stuff will go and more on Atomos itself. I feel like our artificial Atomos could inadvertently call forth the biggest Atomos ever seen in XIV and we'll end up with a situation like Wings of the Goddess's story in FFXI.

There is some speculation that the 4 archfiends will become the new patch trial fights akin the the ultima weapon series. Also, the 13th could very well become the new patch content zone akin to Bozja where we farm out new relic weapons.

13's Azem.. that's such an interesting thought...

Definitely thinking Golbez is a former Warrior of Light from the 13th given his backstory in FFIV.

Y'know that theory about that specific voidsent being the 13th's Azem is interesting because it then opens up the possibility for us to merge with them and if that happens it's not gonna be just Ardbert in our heads and then we can hold a real three-way conversation in there, which I think is where the most fun and wacky argument inside our head shenanigans will come from and I want that so dearly

Considering the character of "Frey" who Ishikawa was responsible for, it's definitely in her wheelhouse to write a tragic backstory of a "corrupted" Azem from the 13th.

Estinien appears in some of the Dragoon jobquests and SE would have to rework those IF he dies, since you can play through those jobquests at any point in time. Same for Y'shtola (Alexander sidequests) and all other NPC that appear in sidequests. SE already f'ed up big time when Nanamo was gone but you could still go through the Lv50 CUL quest, where she tries your dish. (Dunno if they fixed that now)

There was a lot of talk about the talismans and protection against corruption I wonder how that will come in to play later on

If it does come down to trying to fix what happened with the 13th I could see the Scions offering to add their resources to see if it can be done.

10:00 HEART OF SABIK!!!

"We know Unukalhai was only a kid so he couldn't become a hero to stop it." **Every JRPG protagonist has entered the chat.**

I don't think they will make Estinien get mind controlled and what not... Since that's already happened twice now. Once in the ARR Dragoon quests and most of Heeavensward after 3.0. I don't want becoming mind controlled and/or possessed becoming Estinien's most defining character trait.

Iirc one of the things that cause the fall of the 13th was the heroes of that world using auracite and being transformed into horrible monsters. I would not be surprised if Golbez, the fiends and maybe even Zenos’ avatar were warriors of light who became monsters due to using auracite and that’s why Golbez wants redemption

My theory is that Varus is the black knight, and he made a covenant with the void like the allag emperor. Which is going to be used make a connection to Meracydia which will be the focus of the next expansion.

My bet is on this being the new Bozja setting and we empower our talismans to go further. Lets them have raid encounters here too which would make sense.

I have some theories that "Not-Golbez" is actually Azdaja. Seeing as Golbez in 4 is Cecil's Brother, so there's no way that ff14's Golbez is not someone's sibling.

Jack: Golbez? Nah, we are going to kill Chaos

I thought it always seemed pretty clear that Unukalhai is the 13th shards Azem soul

to add more to your speculation on estinien's fate. in after years, kain undergoes a sort of redemption arc gaining a holy dragoon state after defeating his dark side, similar to cecil, albeit with much more difficulty. my take is estinien may cleanse the remainder of nidhogg off himself as his own arc, maybe reaching a not so subtle resolution of helping vrtra and the dragons.

I had a theory about the 4 fiends and this void storyline being a set up for the trial fights ala the four lords storyline. We still don't know what the next 4 extreme trials would be about.

A small pice of advise. Do play all role quests of shadowbringer and the entire questline after. It will bring further information related to the 13th

Well... do we know that Golbez and the Lunarians don't fit into the narrative of the 13th? All we know is that the heroes used auracite to combat the evil that was thrown at them and it tilted the realm towards Darkness to quickly. We don't know WHAT they were fighting, exactly. Not even young NPC1 or older NPC2 from that area told us what that enemy was. Who is to say that it wasn't an Ascian-manipulated Lunarian? The developers HAVE said that ALL the reflections have a moon and each of them does have a different purpose or meaning...

10:00 "Zenos is Emet Selch's grandson" umm how did I miss this???

As much as I like speculation (good vid btw), not sure about the talismans degrading because that was the whole point of visiting Cid and he apparently has a way to protect the talismans from degradation(may or not succeed? Personally I'm thinking that it will).

Knowing SE's: *Reputation And Company Mess* (Recent Years) I'm not Convinved Also SE: *You like NFTs, Right?*

I don't think when it shows the void/13th at the start of the 6.1 msq, our main character is dreaming it... our character has history of echo and would be concerned and would have shared if they seen what was going on. Imo it was just a perfect place to put a "meanwhile somewhere else' moment to show not all is well in the world

I think the most important line in the whole patch is "Maybe Elidibus saved more than just Unakulhai". Theres what 7 destroyed/rejoined worlds at this point right? nothing says he only saved people from the 13th, if someone was going to die before the rejoining and die-die then Elidibus would kind of be driven to save them purely because of what he was. If some of those reflections "will surprise us" there could already be people on the source with completely alien motivations to anything we have dealt with before. We've seen in endwalker there were worlds way more technologically advanced than eithery's, a reflection that didn't go through 10k years of calamities could in theory be hyper advanced too and we could get a reverse garrosh running to dreanor with blueprints that could be massively destabilising to the established cultures technological development. I definitely think that voidsent is a shard of azem, who else would be good enough for Zenos but his dear friend?

..... those shots of the Reaper Avatar in Ul'dah/Rising Stones.. Crime Tools W

I expect the thing with golbez to be the side story with the trials and such. Like the weapons in shadowbringers.

The black knight and his henchmen's sigil looks like a dragon.