The thing about Final Fantasy XIV datamining is that, at least to me, it’s kind of boring. Unlike some other games that used to have a whole lot of almost-finished stuff that wasn’t quite available and still now relies on the community to find things not yet announced, FFXIV historically makes it rare for branches of not-yet-ready-for-prime-time stuff to show up in patches. Sure, it happens, but for the most part there are not treasures of cut areas and plans that you can find by sifting through game files.
But that’s not the same as there not being cut content, exactly.
The thing about FFXIV as a game is that it exists in the wake of version 1.0, the game that was and that had its own set of datamined content that was never implemented. (Which actually included cutscenes and such for a 1.0 Titan fight, so that’s interesting.) But the thing is that said 1.0 also includes some things we know about that aren’t accessible now, and yet there’s also cut content that we’ve never seen – even though we know it’s out there.
For example, in Gridania there’s an entrance to the Lily Hills. It’s described as the place where most Gridanian citizens live, and adventurers aren’t permitted there. This is kind of a clever way of handling things, since otherwise the city is a little oddly tiny, but it also sparks some questions because back in 1.0, the speculation is that would be where player housing would eventually go. And it’s not, but there’s still a gate there. A gate that looks as if it’s supposed to go somewhere… but it doesn’t.
You could argue that this is not quite cut content, and I agree in the sense that we don’t have a smoking gun of “this district was supposed to contain such-and-such questline.” But as I’ve mentioned in other columns and other places, everything in a game costs time and money. That includes putting this doorway that’s implied to lead somewhere that ultimately doesn’t. And yes, the map of Gridania was imported from 1.0, but 1.0 Gridania also had a theater that is explicitly blocked off now.
Areas that were in 1.0 but aren’t in 2.0 onward are many. Beyond that, though, are areas that were hinted at in 1.0 and/or 2.0 but still can’t be explored in any fashion. Lily Hills is in that category, but that also includes the fact that there are gigantic doors in the Northern Shroud that lead absolutely nowhere. They’re just kind of open, and they’re supposedly the reason the Dullahans are roaming in that area, but we’ve just never gone into them at all.
But these locales are hardly the only ones. After all, who could forget the fifth major city-state of Eorzea, Ala Mhigo?
We have, technically, been to Ala Mhigo insofar as there is a dungeon by that name that we explore. But whenever the plot requires us to go to Ala Mhigo, we go to the Ala Mhigan Quarter, which was supposedly the slums before the Ala Mhigans liberated themselves from Garlean oppression. And that has definitely happened now. There isn’t even a Garlean Empire any more. Yet there’s no hint whatsoever that we’ll be able to roam around Ala Mhigo any time soon.
But it keeps going. If you go look around the Marauder’s Guild, you’ll notice a lot of NPCs with muskets at their hips. There are literally two of them engaged in target practice on the lower floor. This is not surprising insofar as this was originally the Musketeer’s Guild in 1.0 (even though Musketeer was never an option) with the Marauder’s Guild being on a boat, but the game hasn’t removed those NPCs. They just have a job you don’t and can’t get.
You can’t get a Crystal Braves uniform even though those are demonstrably available for every race (because it’s just a different color of the Grand Company uniform). There’s a gate right next to Ul’dah you can’t go through. The list goes on of places that we know are there but are blocked off by broken bridges or just never discussed because seriously, who cares any more? You can’t have that gun job, but you have a gun job, so what’s the big deal?
And the answer is that it really isn’t a big deal in the larger sense of the word. The game is showing us the places that are important to the story and aren’t basically just re-exploring places we’ve already been. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to revisit more of the Coerthan highlands than we’ve already seen, for example, but at the same time, if it’s just a big empty field with monsters I don’t need to fight and NPCs I can talk to but don’t need to, then it’s just 1.0 again, which had a whole bunch of space you could explore but never had reason to explore.
Sure, it was nice for finding roleplaying venues, but that’s not the only thing that counts in life. Tops, that’s like 40% of what matters.
At the same time, looking back over a decade of this game, I am disappointed to see how many of these dead ends have developed. They’re not huge and glaring omissions, but they are omissions all the same, places that have more space for exploration that have forever been written off because that’s not what we’re dealing with any more. So somehow every important thing that happens in Coerthas happens in specifically two zones, and while we’ve definitely managed to fill that space in with a fair number of quests over the years, it’s still kind of disappointing that we’re never going to see more of this space.
It’s even more egregious when you consider that we may never seen the rest of Ilsabard, meaning that an entire continent consists of one zone without even a hub city. Othard is already kind of underserved compared to Aldenard, and we now see as much of the moon as we see of an actual land mass that has a whole lot of story in it. (Yes, technically Thavnair is a part of that continent in the larger sense. You know what I mean.)
Do I have a solution for this? Not really, no. I can understand not wanting to try to assemble an expansion based on the three zones we didn’t see in Eorzea plus two zones in Ilsabard and one more zone in Othard, especially when there’s no narrative reason for that beyond wanting a clearer and more coherent picture of the world. But it does make me a bit sad that we’ve wound up with lots of stuff that’s walled off with a handwave of “you can guess how this goes” in terms of jobs, zones, and just general exploration. Although I suppose I prefer this to trying to figure out how to wrap up a version of Endwalker that didn’t go to any of these locations.
Still, if we go back to some of this cut stuff? I would be the opposite of upset.
Feedback, as always, is welcome in the comments down below or via mail to eliot@massivelyop.com. Next week, I’m going to answer Venat’s biggest question in Endwalker by talking about myself. It’s still anniversary-adjacent; it’s fine.
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.
