bigredkid: My biggest wish for the future of this arc, though I don't expect it, is that Halmarut keeps throwing members of the Winterers at us, and after we defeat them, she keeps putting them into stuffed animals like she did with Calyx. An army of stuffed animals talking crap to us would be great.

justinlongtin8226: I think it could be cool to have zenos be the inner conflict of the wol. But in my personal opinion he had the redemption arch and a fitting final battle at the end of time and space lol. I think it's a disservice to bring him back it completely removes stakes of anything

wheelsrolling369: zenos is just there to join the world's back so that he can have another reason to have an even better fight than last time

TheJohnnylupine: Au ra guy: "and now that you know my tragic backstory you will surely see reason"

WoL looks up, sighs in exasperation, pinches bridge of nose "the Zenos in my head says we have to fight now"

Lyu-Phy: Keep on rolling those EC theory videos, it sweetens the long wait for sure.

xakishiri2147: If we are going with the whole idea that evercold is about picking stuff from FF7, there are a few things that come to mind: The Wutai War and the various figures around it; this could be easily made into the next Raid Series or the various versions of JENOVA and Dr. Hojo in the mix of it; my favorite contender for a Raid Series.

Bigg-Trev: One thing I would've liked to see explored more of was Zenos having nightmares of the Final days. Why did he get these but no other ascian descended seem to suffer?

MrCrow99999: As much as evercold does appear to have to ties to ff7, for theory perspective i'm gonna take a different ff and some lore and perhaps give this a thought.

The maiden who disappears in front of odin is not an aerith callout but is more so a Brynhildr reference from ff13. In this sense as well, the odin dude is more of a reference in his role to Barthandalus assuming this guy is the one leading things and is a winterer.

Because of these roles, the maiden will appear in a different form (i know some speculation is Halmarut) that is very different from the form she appears as here.

JimaJijima: Cant wait to see Zenos become the warrior of light equivalent in the 4th and get his own party of friends lol

Jon_the_Wizard: My theory is we ARE going to be replacing a zone in Evercold. Specifically we're going to be replacing the implied other half of a zone: the part of Garlemald around The Clyteum. Garlemald and the Fourth seem to be pretty accurate in terms of weather (cold as all get out), and it would be a way to bring the Garleans back into the plot proper except now they're trying to reconquer their territory from some very confused newcomers who don't really know what they've gotten themselves into.

BeatrixKiddo198: I'm imagining a dungeon where we climb up a Colossus and possibly a trial at the top too like Mt. Gulg.

masterplusmargarita: The thing that the shot of "Not Aerith" disappearing into snow into the Odin/Winterer guy looking mildly sad and menacing tells me is that they're related in some way - maybe by blood, maybe she's his love interest from his younger days - and her death to the ice is what sent him into despair and potentially joining the Winterers/concocting whatever evil plan he's up to. I imagine we WILL meet her, but either through flashbacks or through something similar to Ardbert where she's sort of an echo of days gone by.

ProggerstheFrog: Im pretty sure the calamities were to weaken Hydaline's influence on keeping the shards sundered. Now that she no longer exists calamities aren't really required. Theres a natural magnetism between the shards now as said in patch 6.5.

cagliostronomics: Not a theory, but an idea for a scene: something where one of these floating/carried cities tips over, and you're locked in an animation where you're sliding down the ground towards the edge, watching people, buildings, and other things gradually falling all around you....

Not as a Dungeon (though that'd still be cool), but as a previously-safe zone that just gets mercked.

sterlingmartin3235: Honestly I'm with you with Zenos. He was a villain I loved to hate. The creepy obsession he had with the WoL was genuinely unnerving and helped to sell him as a villain you wanted to get away from and defeat. Getting rid of him felt good, but you also kind of feel the fact that they haven't done a good job of finding something to replace him.

Cubbles1234: I've been saying it since the end of EW, but I feel like Zenos will come back and when he does he won't be the same character/the same antagonistic force he was previously. I expect he'll lean into the idea he talked about in his final talk - where he wonders if, under different circumstances, he would be more like us. If he comes back, I think he'll try to be 'just another adventurer' and be the devil to our angel. Where the WoL can act on emotion and go out of their way to do the right thing because its 'morally right', Zenos will get the job done on cold logic and just getting the job done - creating an ideological clash. I think if handled right, especially with some morally grey decisions where the cold approach could be the more 'correct' one, it could create some interesting dynamics between the characters. Also, after Tacos of Peace and some of the ridiculously handled stuff of DT, I'm begging for a character like Zenos to come in and just ask "WoL - wtf are you doing? Why are you entertaining these childish shenanigans? Just go out and get the job done..."

valdorgaming4730: I still feel like this is going to lean more towards FF13. FF9 was the 9th shard, and they had the 13th be FF4, so 4th being 13 would balance that out. The first surefire enemies we see remind me a lot of the generic flyer enemies from 13 (cant remember the name) and the massive crystalline/ice spire also reminds me of what Vanille and Fang transformed into at the end to keep Cocoon from falling down. Also the theme of living in sky cities because the planet isnt the best is a parallel

oponono4576: I might be reading too much into it but the praying Au Ra girl kinda reminds me of the Mother of the Sheave statue in the Churning Mists. The one that represent Saint Shiva I think? But again likely im reading too much into it.

jellybryce7742: nothigns going to matter in 7.55 it will all be retconned by 8.0

powerofk: I am not a fan of Zenos. At all. I want him to be dead and stay dead. I can see, however, that we have hallucinations of Zenos due to Halmarut's games. Dreams, maybe?

sunayocarissime5309: For my main there's always been some tension when it came tor certain characters. She's had three major crushes in her time. Haurchefant, Estinien and Zenos. Despite the fact they did cross blades she thought Zenos was handsome and powerful. Needless to say she was a little sad when he was left on behind on the edge of eternity and part of her is hoping he got back somehow. Reason is pretty obvious. A saying from Jeffrey Sinclair from Babylon 5. "Best way to get to know someone is to fight them, make them angry. That way you can actually see who they actually are." From her perceptive, Zenos was just pretending to be a tyrant when in actuality he could be heroic if he wanted to.

WilliamTheWatchful: 6:20 I had dreams of a collab in FF7R3 where Cloud and Co. would find Hildibrand's legs sticking out of the ground.

The rest would be hilarity and shenanigans.

XDEFXD: Love how the colossus remind me of Sin from FFX. Just gimmie the crossover already so many summons already in game.

Mordak1989: Based on the Norse mythology parallels we've been seeing and with FF7 having Norse names in the world, I think the first trial is going to be against Midgardsomr, the giant snake from FF7. Oh, and would you look at that, a zone with a giant snake edifice was shown. Alternatively it's a dungeon boss, but it's pretty infamous encounter.

KitsuneShapeShifter: YES, let my WoL daydream about him! I want to hear his voice again!

islanddenaagikont1642: I think ever cold may actually have a potential to do is set up the future structure of the coming saga itself. Where I believe that the winters are all individuals that have different method to how they will resolve the issue of the solstice.

being that some of the winter will probably be in conflict with one another, leading to what I think will become a war amongst the shards.

And a main thing that I think will have a potential to be a major antagonist for us, would be one of our own reflections, or multiple. Where I could see narrative wise that one of the major Winters could be another warrior of light. Cuz we know how damn dangerous we are

7Celestron: I think Halmarut was implying that Zenos and maybe Fanny boy were Winterers, they just put their goals above their "duty" as a Winterer. So bringing him back as a Winterer would be redundant because he already was one.

May 18 2026

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