I'm going to drop this theory here and expand on it when I have more time / more evidence becomes available. This is something I've been working on for some time and there's a lot of speculative evidence for this happening. Some of you may remember my video correctly predicting the incapacitation of Xiao before Episode 6 began so this isn't anything unusual from me. I'm just a series lore buff and love making connections from the bread crumbs Sega has left us over time. I also freely admit I'm not always right, such as Mitra actually having normal human ears rather than Newman ears. (I'm more confused by the shape of their headdress now because of that.) Large Episode 4-6 spoilers below

The Shiva/Oracle war IS the war spoken of in End of the Millenium's opening. It will lead to the creation of Algol to seal Shiva away.

Points working to support this theory

• The Akashic Record is a record of not just only the past but also the future and Omega was a dream where certain facts may have been confused.
• The presence of Lashiec.
• One ARKS does not have enough power to defeat Shiva as seen in our attempt to defeat her in the form of our other self. They likely will only be able to repeat what the Photoners did, but on a grander scale of 3 planets than 1 planet. (Remember Rykross was intended to be an early warning system for the weakening of the seal every 1000 years, not part of the seal itself.)
• The Profound Darkness found in The Edge appears female in their final form.
• There's a time loop once Phantasy Star III takes place which splits the timeline, sometimes with the Alisa III ending up near Earth, possibly after the ARKS arrive. (We'll never know this for certain, the Earth adventure was supposed to span 3 episodes but because Hitsugi's VO had to leave that was put on hold. Regardless this triggers the "Earthmen" portion of the timeline) In other cases it arrives near Ragol and the seal of Mutt Ditz Poumn is placed to contain the Dark Falz within. (The ruins are actually inside of a space ship as seen if you noclip through the area with a map viewer.) Somehow both scenarios are able to exist at the same time. However Ragol doesn't translate directly to PSO2 because it wasn't Pioneer 2 that found Xion. There's a chance it was a ship from Coral that found Xion due to the shape of the ships of the Oracle fleet. We also have the name of that ship, Pioneer 3. Pagini name dropped that as one of his random statements after a trade in PSO Episode II. Pioneer 3 never arrived at Ragol.
• The Dark Falz "Aru" entity that attacked early on in Episode 4 used an attack that was eerily similar to the Black Wave.
• Sega refuses to provide details on Episode 7 at this time with Vita support ending, instead opting to simply say the game will get a gigantic update. This could be something on the lines of what an MMO have in a named expansion. We also know there was a job posting for PSO3 some time back.
• The Vita opening highlighted a Musk Cat for the 25th anniversary, not a Rappy which had since become the mascot of the series.
• Lillipans could evolve to be Motavians, perhaps by staying permanently in Barbillipan form. Draconians could evolve to become Dezorians.
• Chapter 4 mentions efforts to reseal Shiva.

Other possible connections

• Characters like Re Faze may be Phantom Class ARKS that held a technique a bit too long and got stuck like that.
• Several Luminmechs look similar to Dark creatures found on Ragol. The new enemy at the end of Divide Quests looks like a Chaos Sorcerer. Prior to this there was another that looked like a Merlan/Arlan.
• Nyau may be a great grandchild of Myau that ascended to an interdimensional being. Phantasy Star End of the Millenium provides evidence of Musk Cat evolution as one of Myau's litter was able to open a bottle whereas Myau couldn't. Nyau carries a bottle of Ashline around their neck.
• We know Gurhal is NOT part of the Oracle universe as per a sub-story that took place when Emelia and Vivienne arrived via a trip through subspace.
• The Etoile class is unique in that players using that class and damage balancer are unable to heal via self heals from weapons, regeneration or techniques, and instead can only heal via the Etoile's abilities and mates. This is very similar to how Androids in Algol operate in that they can't be hit by techniques for healing and instead have to rely on Repair Kits. (For the sake of gameplay Sega probably made a decision to allow healing via mates by all charactesr rather than requiring repair kits be used by casts.)

Things that may disprove this theory

• Idola Phantasy Star Saga features the presence of several prominent PSO2 figures such as Seraphy, Quna, Luther, and Matoi
• Varuna (Lashiec) and Mitra are based on deities mentioned in the Indian Vedic Sanskrit hymns. We've seen other names from there mentioned before such as Agni and Indra, as seen in the weaponry on Ragol.
• Shiva changes the mothership to look similar to the Ruins on Ragol.
• Episode 6 is subtitled Stars which refers to the Soul.
• A Gunslash successor/scion is on the way this summer and it wouldn't make sense for Sega to put development into it if the game was about to end in such a definitive way. (Unless Algol gets created but the ARKS leave the area after.)

@PrinceBrightstar said in Predicting the next move for the series (FULL Phantasy Star Series including unreleased PSO2 Episode 4-6 Spoilers Inside ):

Lillipans could evolve to be Motavians

Lillipans are mammals, Motavians are birds. How would that even work?

Anyway I think the signs are pointing towards a paid expansion that adds Algol to the game. However, I do not think it will be the same Algol but something more like Doma and/or Ivalice in FFXIV (although Omega seems to be PSO2's Doma already, just with fewer references). It's also possible that future updates will include a new Ragol, as well as traveling to the original Gurhal the same way we went to Earth.

In other words, it's possible that this will be an alternate timeline that ties the plot of the entire franchise together in a nice bow without risking creating plot holes in the existing story.

Indeed, I'm not saying we're going to be running around with Alis and Myau, rather we're going to be playing in the time before Waiss.

What I mean is that we're probably going to get compressed alternate versions of each story per episode with the PSClassic story likely being compressed together as one episode with all three episodes being grouped together in "Episode Phantasy" or "Episode Legacy".

If it is an alternate story, i'd at least be interested in seeing how the worlds looked. I'd love to see Grass Assassins rendered in the PSO2 engine. Sega had the opportunity to do more within Omega and didn't because of the skewed time scale there, reserving it to just Alisa and Lutz but still skewed. (See the other thread about Orakio)

Just for perspective as per the original story, the ARKS would have left/died off long ago as a very long time passed from Algol being created, including nearly 1000 years between each game. Someone became known as the Great Light and those on Rykross are the only known survivors still in Algol.

Motavians are rodents, not birds, even if the art in PS4 makes them look as if they have a beak.

You are forgeting something: Parmecians obliterated every other rival species in the planet, and named it Parma, that's why PS1 and Shining Force share the same map, so yeeeah, you have to put the Shining Series between PSO2 and PS1 lol but no worries, there should be a few billion years from one point to the other.

They could really do remakes and sell them as offline games, then ad maps, mobs and clothes in PSO2, with no relation at all with PSO2 story.

@landman said in Predicting the next move for the series (FULL Phantasy Star Series including unreleased PSO2 Episode 4-6 Spoilers Inside ):

You are forgeting something: Parmecians obliterated every other rival species in the planet, and named it Parma, that's why PS1 and Shining Force share the same map, so yeeeah, you have to put the Shining Series between PSO2 and PS1 lol but no worries, there should be a few billion years from one point to the other.

That's the first I've heard of this. ._.

They could really do remakes and sell them as offline games

Yea the last remakes were for PS2 and still used sprites. I don't expect this to happen in the near future though, look how long it took to get the new Panzer Dragoon remake done.

I just had a disturbing thought, seeing as the game is already so old, the big update could be the NGE(SWG)/Cataclysm(WoW)/Big Bang(Maplestory) update of PSO2, completely revamping both the code and setting.

Edit: Apparently I can't delete posts.

That's exactly what I meant when I said it might be possibly a named expansion. "Phantasy Star Online 2 : Electric Boogaloo"

The examples I listed weren't expansions, they were revamps of the base games. The NGE only changed the core mechanics, added story progression and overhauled the underlying codebase but the Cataclysm and Big Bang updates changed a ton of things both backend and frontend about the base game. Maplestory doesn't even have paid expansions and you didn't need the expansions for NGE (Trials of Obi-Wan was separate) and the changes Cataclysm caused (and mind, this was before WoW started giving away the previous expansions before the newest one for free, also, the Blood Elf starting zones, Dranei starting zones, Death Knight starting zone, Outland and Northrend were all unchanged)

Added a point regarding Etoile healing being similar to Androids in Algol had to heal via Repair Kits and couldn't be hit by techniques.

@PrinceBrightstar The Androids/CASTs from Coral weren't able to self-heal or use techs at all too though. Granted I don't know if this is true in Zero but it was true in PSO.

Actually it kind of puts a spanner in the works because PSO2 Casts can use techs. Then again, they're cyborgs, not androids (though the ones in PSU and the portable games were also androids and could use techs unless I am remembering wrong). Far as I am aware anyway, we know this is true of Lisa anyhow (though she's only ever been a Ranger and we thus don't know how far her photon aptitude goes).

Well part of the point was that other members also couldn't heal the androids on Algol with resta, unlike those from Coral.

No one in Gurhal can use techs, they need a weapon with the proper techs linked. CASTs in PSO could also use weapons with techs linked to them.

I enjoy reading the speculation by new players to PSO2 instead of spoiling things. = w=