The game and all its content is heavily based on story. So it makes sense that the Heavensward areas were locked from the beginning. This was the same for FFXI. Tavnazia, Kazham, Abyssea. All locked because of story. So you shouldn’t be surprised you can’t access areas because you didn’t want to complete the main…

We’ll say newest even though she’s from Street Fighter Alpha 3 released in 1998, but you know “newest”.

It’s probably also worth noting you get a free copy of Final Fantasy 1 with the Portal App.

It’s not linked to FFXIV, Yoshida has stated he wants to integrate FFXIV into the portal app but that hasn’t happened yet. It’ll be in a future update.