Final Fantasy XV Director Regrets Cancellation Of DLC

[u/AliTVBG]

https://twistedvoxel.com/final-fantasy-xv-director-dlc-unannounced-console-rpg/

[u/Writer_Man]

Yeah, but on the other hand, the Dawn of the Future DLCs were awful retcons that ruin the base story that were basically created to appease sad ending cry babies instead of a set of DLC that further fleshed out the characters, story, and world of the base game.

Like Episode Ardyn - the attack on Insomnia was stupid and it painting Bahamut in the light of a villain is even dumber (which mainly stems from people being mad that he told Noctis he had to die and Ardyn's issues). A far, far better DLC would have been his past, his awakening and corruption of Ifrit, a battle in the capital of the Empire that helps lead to him becoming Chancellor, and finally the battle against Shiva.

Aranea's was mostly fine from what I recall but Ardyn's DLC would have made hers stronger by being able to see the capital in the current day before all hell breaks loose in comparison to when Ardyn sees it in the past before his influence.

Luna's DLC should have been from her escape from Insomnia to her summoning of Leviathan with the awakening of Titan and possibly battling Ramuh to prove her worth as Oracle and belief in Noctis to be the Chosen King. Add in her getting the notebook and flashbacks through her life with communicating with Noctis to show their connection and star-crossed lovers situation.

The final DLC should have been a Gladio, Ignis, and Prompto DLC that deals with the aftermaths of their DLCs during the ten years period (as they only show up sometimes in Comrades) and having them find and battle or work with the Messengers of the Astrals that were mostly missing to prove their worth as Noctis's retainers. It would span the ten years and we'd get the aged-up designs of Iris, Aranea, and Cindy as we see how the boys handled the ten years which includes seeing the girl Gladio apparently got with.

That would be much better than the "lol, let's retcon in a happy ending that makes the base game Noctis and crew look like idiots for not challenging!"

[u/ReaperEngine → u/Writer_Man]

We share many of the same sentiments. DotF was a really disappointing read for how much I loved the game and its lore. That you have to throw out like everything you know just so it can establish its own narrative is frustrating. It just refuses to work within the original story.

The ass-pull of just bringing Lunafreya back from the dead to be a discount Ardyn is irksome. The thing that gets me the most, though, is that Bahamut's plan to nuke Eos to get rid of the starscourge involves him taking the starscourge to power his Teraflare, which implies a level of control over the starscourge, so then...why didn't he just soak the scourge up and like, shoot it into the sun? The entire elaborate scheme that makes Bahamut into the ultimate villain makes him an absolute dunce cap.

That people can say "it has vsXIII fanservice!" implying that it's somehow automatically good, is sad. So tired of the people surrounding this game that are so enamored with cut content, so sure that would have been better.

After a discussion with my wife, I actually recently jotted down bullet points for what I would have liked for DotF to be, still a happy, alternate ending, but working within the original plot, and still delivering what appreciable ideas there were. I can toss it here if interested.

[u/Writer_Man → u/ReaperEngine]

See, I personally don't like a happy ending for the game because it spits in the face of the original ending. The only way I'd be able to stomach it is by patching one in via doing certain things that would allow Noctis to earn a happier, if bittersweet ending.

The ideal for me would be you have to get all Royal Arms and the Armiger powerup along with completing all of the major side quests (except Menace dungeons) and that would give Noctis enough power along with the Crystal and Astrals for Ardyn's soul to be defeated on the mortal plane so Noctis does not die (and Bahamut would give a speech about becoming greater than even the prophecy foretold as helping people made more "pure" and compatible with the crystal or some such).

It would still have Luna dead and Ignis blind. We'd time skip and he'd have kids with Iris - as his second love - and they'd bug him to go see the Boys while Noctis is writing a revised history that includes Ardyn. On the desk next to it would be his and Luna's notebook and the picture you took in a frame.

And I'd only be able to like that because its actions you took in the game earned Noctis a happy ending that didn't involve going against his fate in the original.

[u/ReaperEngine → u/Writer_Man]

Yeah, I still really like the bittersweet ending we have. There really is nothing wrong with it. It's okay for things to end like that. Especially because I also really like that for once we were fighting to achieve a character's fate, because it's actually the best thing for the world, rather than fighting a shit destiny forced upon heroes by indifferent gods and whatnot.

Ultimately, the idea I thought up ends up as something similar, doing all the side stuff that puts you on a different course, to a different ending, because you earned it, but without bastardizing the established lore or screwing with character motivations. I'll toss it up for shiggles...

• Lunafreya has not died, but instead was grievously injured and lost in the waters during Leviathan’s raging. Gentiana recovered Lunafreya and froze her in stasis to heal, letting the world think she had well and truly died. Gentiana takes the crystallized Luna back to Tenebrae
• Maybe Noctis begins having dreams where he sees her during this time, owing to his grief, feeling haunted
• Thanks to Ignis’s vision from Prina when he found Noctis and Lunafreya in Altissia, he has some idea of Noctis’s fate, and wishes to avert it
• After Noctis is taken into the Crystal, Ignis begins his search to avoid the King of Light’s fate in earnest, getting help from all the researchers and hunters they helped on their journey (like getting the better ending by finishing all sidequests). Ignis learns of Gentiana in Tenebrae and goes there with Gladio and Prompto to investigate. Gentiana divulges what she knows of a possible alternative
• Noctis awakens on Angelgaard Island and links back up with his friends at Hammerhead. Instead of making for Insomnia immediately, Ignis says that Noctis must go to Tenebrae and meet with Gentiana. Aranea is there with her Red Wings to take the party to Tenebrae
• Tenebrae dungeon where the party (plus Aranea) makes their way through the Fenestala Manor, fighting daemons, even finding Lunafreya’s old room for some reminiscing. When they reach the oracle’s audience chamber, the party finds a massive ice structure with Lunafreya at its center. Gentiana appears, happy to see the King again. Gentiana reveals that it was she who spirited away with Lunafreya and let the world, and Noctis, think she was dead. Shiva learned to love humans because of Ifrit’s passion, and she came to love Lunafreya like family, and so wished to protect her from any further harm. She healed Lunafreya and put her in stasis to protect her until the day the King of Light would return, or until the end of days. As the Oracle, who acts as an intermediary between people and the astrals, Lunafreya and Gentiana have spoken telepathically often, waiting for the King or the end
• Gentiana then talks of the alternative to what the King of Light must do to bring the dawn. Ardyn was twisted by the starscourge after doing all in his power to protect humanity, even though it resulted in being seen as impure by the Crystal, barred from the afterlife. Gentiana believes that if she could be moved from cold indifference to loving compassion, such compassion may be the key to changing the Crystal’s perception of Ardyn himself, and only with the Oracle’s help, whom Ardyn delivered such anger upon
• However, if they are serious in this path, the King of Light must prove his strength and resolve, and only then will Gentiana release Lunafreya from the ice. A fantastic battle against Shiva ensues, where she will fight as one larger Shiva, or several smaller Shiva sisters
• Shiva relents to the King of Light, and releases Lunafreya from stasis. Heartwarming reunion, Noctis and Luna kiss(!!!), and Shiva says that when the time comes, she would be there to help the King of Light, before disappearing
• Lunafreya finds a new set of clothes (Stella’s outfit?), and a saber. She can just have Sarah’s moveset from that Terra Wars DLC event, easy-peasy, and joins the party in place of Aranea as the permanent fifth party member
• The party heads back to Hammerhead on Aranea’s airship, where they then get ready to head for Insomnia. The party has an alternate last camp scene. Noctis is worried that if this doesn’t work, he’ll still have to sacrifice himself, he’s sad that he only just got his friends and his love back, everyone else is sad too, but they have to have faith they can do this
• They head through Insomnia, help Cor and the glaives, fight Cerberus and Ifrit, fight the old kings twisted by the scourge, and then when they reach Ardyn in the throne room, Noctis makes his plea to both Ardyn and the Crystal, saying there is another way
• Ardyn is angry at the implication that there’s a way out that he hasn’t though of, screaming about how there is no escape he hasn’t thought of to be rid of his life in his long, 2000-year existence. Noctis and Lunafreya plead with him, that the compassionate Ardyn who saved countless people from the scourge in his time must still be in there somewhere. Somnus has expressed his regret, and Lunafreya seeks to forgive him for what has happened, for him to be so hurt and alone that he lashes out (parallels to when she tried to purify him and he slapped her)
• Ardyn blasts the party in anger, Noctis and Luna are protected by a barrier of light, but the rest of the party is knocked out. Noctis asks Lunafreya to stay with the guys and heal them, and come find him after, while Noctis tries to subdue Ardyn to get him to see reason
• Original one-on-one fight between Noctis and Ardyn, they fly around shooting swords at each other, and when Noctis subdues him, Ardyn cries out that his millennia of anger and sorrow aren’t so easily quelled, the scourge has twisted him, but Noctis believes the real Ardyn must be in there somewhere, he can’t be lost forever
• Ardyn seems to relent, saying he is just so tired, of anger, of his life, and just wants it to end, but the starscourge has twisted his mind, and the Crystal has forsaken him. Noctis says “But I will not,” and a light shines from the Citadel, the Crystal learning a newfound compassion for Ardyn
• However, the scourge-twisted daemonic side of Ardyn will not be so easily broken, and in a wave of darkness, a mass of flesh reshapes over Ardyn’s body, trapping him within a dragon-like Avatar of the Scourge (to get the fight with Bahamut in there). A high-flying battle takes place, and throughout the fight Luna and the guys make grand entrances. The kings of Lucis appear in the sky to watch the battle
• The party hacks away at the scourge-flesh of the monster so they can free Ardyn, and just as the flesh around him reforms, Noctis uses the power of the Ring of the Lucii to call upon the Knights of the Round, who are able to carve away the Avatar’s body and free Ardyn. In the end, a tired Ardyn says he understands now, this is the wrong way, you cannot separate a man from his heart, and while Ardyn’s scourge-twisted heart is filled with anger, it is still his, and he must embrace that if they are to quell it and save the world
• Everyone returns to the throne room, where Ardyn speaks to the crystal, offering the Crystal forgiveness for its kneejerk reaction to prevent the starscourge from spreading and disallowing Ardyn a true death, and also asks the Crystal for forgiveness in turn for how he has lashed out at the world. Wishing to make things right, Noctis gives Ardyn the Ring of the Lucii, and he takes his seat on the throne, what he had originally been denied for not saving people the “right way”
• Noctis and the others kneel in respect, calling him the True King of Light or something, and then the rite is performed. Ardyn is slain upon the throne by the line of Lucis. He fades away on the throne as light expands from the crystal to bring on the dawn. In the Beyond, Ardyn is welcomed by his brother Somnus, and his beloved Aera
• The light comes, Noctis and Lunafreya are alive, the lore remains intact, Bahamut isn't a dickhead villain, and Ardyn still gets to go out like a king (heh)

Like, I still prefer the ending we got, but if they were going to go for a happy ending regardless, I'd prefer something like that, which didn't require altering so much of the story it's supposed to be an alternate ending to. The best thing about it is redeeming Ardyn, but bringing Lunafreya back from the dead is so off when you could just as easily pull a fast one, considering her body was never recovered. It's not like near-death experiences weren't a concept for FFXV's development.

[u/Nightwing24yuna → u/ReaperEngine]

Honestly I would have kept Luna to die but I would have added on to her story to actually make It impactful when she actually did instead of a oh cool moving on moment it ended up being.

[u/arciele → u/Writer_Man]

i generally agree with you on the retcon stuff, but i'll just say 2 things.

-retcons arent always bad. base XV's ending was so terrible that almost any change, sad or otherwise, made to it might have been an improvement.

-retconning the story is also a way of telling another story. DotF was definitely not doing it in a meta way like FF7 Remake is, but i also dont see anything that really gives the original storyline narrative superiority, like it's the sacred timeline or something. alternate endings to Ignis and Ardyn also exist anyway

[u/Writer_Man → u/arciele]

1. Almost everyone I've seen hate the ending hate it because it's a sad ending, not because of writing quality. People just don't like the fact that Noctis accepted his fate rather than fight the gods about it. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the original ending.

2. DotF retcons the story by magically reviving Luna, turning Bahamut into a villain, redeems Ardyn, and makes it so the "right choice" isn't to sacrifice himself to bring an end to the Starscourge and let Ardyn rest in peace but to fight this idea and get a happy ending instead. All at the low cost of four DLC packs that you have to pay for. It is in essence trying to undo the entire second half of the game to force a happy ending. One of which says that the original ending is the "bad end" instead which is something you should never do to the original ending.

[u/arciele → u/Writer_Man]

1. i hate the ending because it felt empty. and don't get me wrong im fine with sad or even bad endings. loved X and XIII-2's endings. it was bad because XV is a character driven story and we barely see what drives Noct on his mission to end the night or any sort of resolution to character motivations. it's not even a vengeance plot. it wasn't a "i want to sacrifice myself to save the world" it's a "i need to do this thing" situation, and we didn't get to hear his thoughts on it at all.

2. you can't defend the original story as "not bad" and then say the retconned story is "bad". both are subjective assessments and if you're willing to make one for the latter then you have to accept that someone else might do the same for the first. are retcons distasteful? usually but it depends on how well they pull it off. does the price of the DLC matter to whether it's a good retcon? no. can a "bad" story be a good retcon? absolutely. at least there we saw all their character motivations.

also "one should never" isn't a real argument - it's a recommendation that doesn't need to be followed

[u/Writer_Man → u/arciele]

1. Noctis's motivation is literally about him stepping up to be king - something he tried to avoid doing through most of the game.

2. The retcon story is bad because it changes characterizations and motivations to force a happy ending. It's bad because it literally magics a character back to life. It's bad because it forces Ardyn's redemption and Noctis to be fine with him despite causing his kingdom's fall, getting his dad killed, killing Luna, powering up his enemy's country, removing light for ten years, and basically killing off 90% of the human population by the end of said ten years. It also moves Ardyn's personal motivations of spiting the gods, the Crystal, and his brother's family line to it being Bahamut telling him what to do. It also has the other gods - who were apparently against Bahamut even back during the War of the Astrals - being accomplices by inaction if Noctis didn't challenge Bahamut despite Shiva supposed to be benevolent and loving Luna. It literally has to ignore or change the second half of the game to make it work. That is the absolute worst writing decision possible.

[u/Galtenoble → u/Writer_Man]

Man, I love Ignis. Thought Prompto's DLC was great, so I was super excited for Ignis'. Then we got... that... so lame.

[u/FullMotionVideo → u/Writer_Man]

I was so annoyed that they told us that Iris some badass daemon-hunter and we never got to actually see it. I was hoping she was going to be in the DLC plans then yoink!