Everything FFXV Datamining Related

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Jun 3, 2018
53
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More story exposition missing from the game, including the justification of the moon as a recurring motif.

Its also implied Noctis would gain the ability to use magic freely.
I KNEW Chapter 14 was reused for DotF. The descriptions of what happend in DotF and the scrapped chapter 14. All of this just confirms what i thought; DotF is a conglomerate of the original ending with new things they came up with along the way.

I've always been of the opinion Deathgaze was gonna be related to Ardyn, if not his form devoid of a human presence. Instead we never got the notion Ardyn was being tormented, merely that he legit just went evil.

This is all so exciting to confirm, and all so sad too. With DotF, the game likely would have been 120% of its original plan. We were gonna get the true ending. Those florence songs absolutely were from multiple endings and how we dealt with Ardyn was likely to help determine what we did. "Be a Man" is the photograph ending. Be a god is the sweeping shots of Lucis, and be a King is the marriage to Luna. Tabata just merged them all together because he wasn't able to fulfill it.

Seems like Luna's role in Royal Edition was her scrapped original role; the way she comes down abd summons the gods to kill the Daemons. It seems like the original plan was for us to fight the ENTIRE horde and then Luna was to help us against Deathgaze, the Daemon Ardyn form. They repurposed her aid to be in Royal Pack but without her logo design as well as the grander scheme.

Bahamut himself was clearly made to be more antagonistic than he was, as Bahamut was antagonistic in the same way Regis is or the fal'Cie; they are slaves to their fate and can't actually choose any different. Noctis can. I legit hate that the original chapter 14 got snipped and the crystal stuff; it's quite obvious the bulk of what the game was building up to was in chapter 14 in the crystal with Luna and Regis's scenes being primarily present. With no time to make the dream walking, all that dream stuff where Kid Noctis and Kid Luna run together got cut (we were totally gonna chase Luna like the 2013 trailer, as Luna even remarks that Noctis found his way to her).

I'm actually of the opinion that Luna's descent into darkness after the Leviathan battle, that big cutscene, was meant to be at the end of chapter 14, same with Regis hugging Noct duringhis choosing as king.

It's so much to unpack.
 
Likes: Storm

Ikkin

Warrior of Light
Oct 30, 2016
1,099
1,705
I KNEW Chapter 14 was reused for DotF. The descriptions of what happend in DotF and the scrapped chapter 14. All of this just confirms what i thought; DotF is a conglomerate of the original ending with new things they came up with along the way.
Except that it's not? Given what DotF itself said about the "Sovereign of the Scourge" concept art, it seems quite clear that elements that were drawn upon for DotF could be used in ways that had absolutely no thematic connection to their original purpose. That's very different from Chapter 14 being meaningfully reused in DotF.

I've always been of the opinion Deathgaze was gonna be related to Ardyn, if not his form devoid of a human presence. Instead we never got the notion Ardyn was being tormented, merely that he legit just went evil.
If Ardyn didn't legit go evil, he'd have been a far less compelling villain. Changing things from earlier concepts isn't necessarily a bad thing, and bringing those concepts back isn't necessarily good.

As for Deathgaze... that particular enemy has far more in common with Amano's concept art than anything to do with Ardyn:



This is all so exciting to confirm, and all so sad too. With DotF, the game likely would have been 120% of its original plan. We were gonna get the true ending. Those florence songs absolutely were from multiple endings and how we dealt with Ardyn was likely to help determine what we did. "Be a Man" is the photograph ending. Be a god is the sweeping shots of Lucis, and be a King is the marriage to Luna. Tabata just merged them all together because he wasn't able to fulfill it.
There's no reason to assume that "Tabata just merged them all together because he wasn't able to fulfill it." It seems far more natural that he decided to combine the concepts to ensure that there would be a single, satisfying conclusion to the story... especially since having three very different takes on the same event is far more nuanced than any of the three on their own.

I'm not sure your attribution for the three endings fits very well, either. I'd say the most natural way to interpret it would have "be a man" as the dialogue from the beginning of the game (implying the ability to redo what had happened without any external magical influence), "be a king" as the campfire scene, and "be a god" as the wedding... except that it seems kind of weird that "be a god" would be a positive ending like that.

Seems like Luna's role in Royal Edition was her scrapped original role; the way she comes down abd summons the gods to kill the Daemons. It seems like the original plan was for us to fight the ENTIRE horde and then Luna was to help us against Deathgaze, the Daemon Ardyn form. They repurposed her aid to be in Royal Pack but without her logo design as well as the grander scheme.
This seems mostly accurate, except that I still don't think Deathgaze has anything to do with Ardyn's monster form.

Bahamut himself was clearly made to be more antagonistic than he was, as Bahamut was antagonistic in the same way Regis is or the fal'Cie; they are slaves to their fate and can't actually choose any different. Noctis can. I legit hate that the original chapter 14 got snipped and the crystal stuff; it's quite obvious the bulk of what the game was building up to was in chapter 14 in the crystal with Luna and Regis's scenes being primarily present. With no time to make the dream walking, all that dream stuff where Kid Noctis and Kid Luna run together got cut (we were totally gonna chase Luna like the 2013 trailer, as Luna even remarks that Noctis found his way to her).

I'm actually of the opinion that Luna's descent into darkness after the Leviathan battle, that big cutscene, was meant to be at the end of chapter 14, same with Regis hugging Noct duringhis choosing as king.
I don't think it makes a lot of sense for the big CG cutscene in Chapter 9 to have been intended for the end of Chapter 14. Structurally, it makes far more sense to put a key scene like that in the beginning of the game than near the end.

It's easy to think of what could have been with regards to Chapter 14, but it's also easy to build it up in one's mind into something that it never could have been. For all we know, it could have been something an awful lot like the Platinum Demo, except with a few more cutscenes thrown in the mix.
 

Ikkin

Warrior of Light
Oct 30, 2016
1,099
1,705

They only had one job...

I also don't believe Ardyn's final form would be based on Deathgaze, since its a too regular design so to speak. Either way I don't doubt his design would incorporate death elements like skulls, black wings, and a scythe.
The fact that they attempted to make a second season of DLC instead of giving us this is my greatest regret about FFXV. =(

(Also: now no one can argue that Luna's battle lines doesn't really imply a Bahamut summon, lol)
 
Feb 19, 2018
582
1,108
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So Aranea was selling imperial intel to Weskham, and would help in the evacuation of Altissia with three airships. This setpiece was supposed to be a bigger event than the one we've got, that's for sure.
Well we know for sure from the concepts shown in the trailers leading up to release that approaching Leviathan at the alter alone was going to be a whole ordeal with the city crumbling around you whereas in the final version it's a pretty quick trip down a corridor before you hitch a ride with Prompto and jump onto Leviathan. Really feels like the entire situation was supposed to be more multifaceted and full of different perspectives as evidenced by Episode Ignis finally giving us a lot of context in terms of what happened with Ravus, Ardyn, and the empire in general whereas originally we were just given a brief exposition via radio about what went down behind the scenes. Even then it feels like there are still some aspects to that whole sequence that remain a mystery even now.
 

Bazztek

Keyblade Master
May 26, 2014
719
1,890
vs

and

vs

Always makes me just a little sad rewatching these old trailers in Altissia. I lovelovelove what 15 became but my heart does break a little knowing we'll never get to play this version.
The Altissia stuff from 2013 wasn't even real gameplay so I've never considered it to ever have been real thing that we missed out on, it was just a CG mockup by Visual Works with a HUD overlayed onto the footage. So it's not like "that 2013 version" ever even actually existed in game form even back then. What the stuff in the datamine shows is that the current version of the Altissia Leviathan setpiece just had some more parts to it in an earlier version of the script, but even the 2013 stuff doesn't fall in line with that datamined script.
 

ash

PSICOM Soldier
Feb 18, 2018
82
97
The Altissia stuff from 2013 wasn't even real gameplay so I've never considered it to ever have been real thing that we missed out on, it was just a CG mockup by Visual Works with a HUD overlayed onto the footage. So it's not like "that 2013 version" ever even actually existed in game form even back then. What the stuff in the datamine shows is that the current version of the Altissia Leviathan setpiece just had some more parts to it in an earlier version of the script, but even the 2013 stuff doesn't fall in line with that datamined script.
Yeah but Nomura would've realized the set piece as we saw in 2013
 
Likes: Vallen

Bazztek

Keyblade Master
May 26, 2014
719
1,890
Yeah but Nomura would've realized the set piece as we saw in 2013
Prove it. Why would he have when he failed to realize anything? The only actual gameplay in the 2013 trailer was the Insomnia Citadel gameplay from Tabata's prototype build on the Ebony engine that he was specifically in charge of and assigned to when he joined the game in 2012, not something Nomura did. And all the gameplay actions such as the Armiger, Warp-Strikes, point warps and such only ever got implemented into the game because of Tabata's build as his build that he headed actually was the one to realize those mechanics in gameplay form, not Nomura. Pretty much every single combat action even down to their animation from that 2013 Insomnia Citadel prototype that Tabata headed is still in the final game too. If you compare that to Nomura's failure to even have the PSX 2015 gameplay of FF7R into the final FF7R, what makes you sure he could have done anything when there is nothing he has ever done to give him that benefit of the doubt, let alone somehow materialize a CG mockup into game form?
 
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Skye

Red Wings Commander
Sep 26, 2013
112
100
33
You know what, I'm super tired with this XV debate, FFXV is released and done, let's move on (Even though I don't like Tabata's XV). Maybe Nomura can do this in FF7R in Wutai (Invasion of Shinra) with the leviathan battle, that's a good idea. You never know, Unreal Engine 5 is capable of doing that gameplay (Similar to Leviathan battle in XV).
 

noctiAlphe

Balamb Garden Freshman
Apr 4, 2018
24
46
I wonder if there is more beta stuffs in the files. After all it took years for several games to be fully data mined. I'm still craving so much for unused info. I kinda moved on from xv but damn can't forget all the time we spent waiting for it and dreaming of what it could be. It give so much motivations. Hopefully, we get more stuffs soon.