I'm kind of confused about this.
The Garlean empire covered most of the largest continent in the world. They had a highly advanced civilisation with radio, trains, and central heating. The map we visit in EW is just a small part of a much larger city. Considering these people were living at 20th century standards, the population of this one city would have been absolutely massive. And there were presumably many, many more. The empire is implied to have been colossal.
When we arrive in EW, the entire city is an apocalyptic ruin. The only outposts are a tiny village and a single subway station, and it's not implied that these are two of many. There are not implied to be any significant Garlean cities or settlements that have survived. The entire empire is just gone.
It really feels like the game kind of glosses over the sheer scale of the death that this would have involved. It would easily exceed that of the Seventh Umbral Calamity. It struck me as really odd when I first played it (and now again, going back and playing through the 6.0 patches) just how oddly understated it is.
We had entire expansions focused on the fates of nations far smaller than Garlemald. But the largest empire on the planet is wiped out, for all intents and purposes, off screen. It's just wild to me. There's this whole storyline with the emperor getting assassinated and a civil war and everyone being tempered and the black rose superweapon, and we basically don't see any of it. It feels like there could have been an entire expansion sandwiched between Shadowbringers and Endwalker, which focused on the collapse of the global superpower, and I just missed it?
We turn up in Garlemald and find out that the apocalypse happened off screen, and then we get quickly ushered on to the next zone, like this isn't the single biggest disaster to strike Etherys in centuries. The game is constantly referencing the destruction of the Allegan Empire - this is on that level of importance, and it feels like a side story.
Am I missing something?