*CONTAINS EPISODE ARDYN SPOILERS*

(The article is incredibly extensive so I only translated certain parts I found to contain interesting material. I may translate other passages if I have time, but I'll put them on a separate fusetter page. I apologize in advance for mistranslations and would greatly appreciate it if you could let me know if you find any. Also, please don't repost without credit. Thank you!)

Source: https://www.famitsu.com/matome/ff15/2019_03_27-2.html

----------Character Lore

— (laughs) Ardyn was a good person in the anime. On the other hand, Somnus…

Osanai: Even if he is envious of his older brother, we wanted to show that Somnus has his own sense of righteousness and that he was doing it for the people, but due to length restrictions, we weren’t able to include as much of that as we would’ve liked. Both the anime and the game are centered around Ardyn, and from his perspective, Somnus is the enemy, so Somnus ended up being depicted in that manner.

—After the battle, when he began apologizing, I was like “what are you saying?!”

Terada: His apology scene left an impression on me, too.

Osanai: The scene symbolizes their relationship. Ardyn’s and Somnus’ passages through time are completely different. After Ardyn was gone, Somnus established a nation and spent a long time protecting his people, all while carrying feelings of guilt at having done his brother wrong. On the other hand, Ardyn was imprisoned for about 2000 years without any knowledge of this, bringing about his “what makes you think you can apologize?!” sort of reaction. His lines were intended to make the player feel the same emotions as him.

—So that’s how it went. I really empathized with Ardyn here.

Osanai: By the way, the one apologizing to him there is Somnus himself, but the Somnuses appearing in cutscenes up until that point are the “Somnus in Ardyn’s mind”—the eviler version seen through Ardyn’s eyes.

Kabe: He really looks evil. (laughs)

Osanai: In the early stages of the anime, we made Somnus a fairly good person. But if we left it that way, it would’ve been difficult to understand why Ardyn detests the royal family as much as he does. Without the establishment of a proper antagonist, Ardyn wouldn’t abhor the royal family, and so [the anime] settled into its current state.

Terada: On the other side of the spectrum, there was a time when we had something much worse. Like a love triangle with Aera. (laughs wryly) That would’ve been too much, so we had it toned down to our current backstory.

—This is related to Somnus, but there’s an event where a button-mash prompt appears. No matter how many times I try, [the dagger] still ends up hitting home. Is it possible to mash hard enough to resist?

Kabe: It is possible. For the most part, you won’t be able to, but we would love for everyone to see what happens if they manage to complete the prompt.

Osanai: We were asked by the one in charge of implementation* which one—resisting [Somnus] or not—would be better story-wise, and since we thought that more people would be shocked by what happens when he’s unable to resist, we had them make it so the majority would fail the button-mash event.

(*I’m assuming design implementation)

—This next question goes into the lore, but could you tell us the origins of “Adagium"?

Osanai: In Latin, it has the meaning “aphorism,” but that doesn’t hold much importance here. It’s more of a codename that the Lucian royal family assigned to conceal Ardyn’s existence. Actually, part way through the main game’s development, some of us on the team started to use the name Adagium.

—Where did Izunia, the surname Ardyn introduces himself with, come from? In the main game, he has a line insinuating that it’s someone’s surname.

Osanai: We planned to touch upon that, but if we were to give a proper explanation, it would’ve taken things off course and so we left it out. Ardyn doesn’t quite remember whose last name it is. Through daemonification, he has absorbed the memories of various people, gaining extensive knowledge but consequently falling deeper into insanity, forgetting even details pertaining to himself.

—In Episode Ardyn, Ardyn fights against young Regis. At this time, Regis sees Ardyn as a guard, right?

Osanai: As you learn at the beginning, Ardyn is seen as a guard from the perspective of those around him. When Regis meets Ardyn in Kingsglaive, he doesn’t have an over-the-top reaction because it’s his first time meeting Ardyn…or so he thinks.

Terada: The onslaught in Episode Ardyn was viewed by the Insomnians as an attack by Adagium, who appeared in the Crown City and wreaked havoc.

—While Ardyn was on his rampage, what was Verstael doing?

Osanai: The plan was to launch a surprise attack on Insomnia once Ardyn had destroyed the devices amplifying the Wall, so he was waiting on the outside. However, after destroying them, Ardyn brings up having a king to kill and goes to find Regis, losing communications and leaving Verstael's following actions unknown. Lore-wise, Verstael did proceed with the surprise attack, but the Wall was more formidable than he thought. Faced also with a counterattack launched by the Lucian army, he ends up retreating. What they learned from this experience was used in their invasion in Kingsglaive.

Terada: And as Ardyn, who headed for Regis, would ultimately be stopped by Bahamut, the operation was a complete and utter failure for Niflheim.

----------Scenario/Novel

(About Episode Ardyn)
— So it was decided from the get-go to take a darker approach. The final choice also drives the story toward a more somber tone.

Terada: What I wanted to add to the game was “no matter what option you choose, Ardyn cannot be saved.” We thought the best way to depict Ardyn’s tragedy was to have the players make the decision and find that nothing has changed. I’m curious what everyone thought about this…

Osanai: We hope everyone thinks it was cruel. (laughs)

Terada: However, the meaning of this final choice differs greatly between the game and the novel. Ardyn’s choice to “resist fate” will gain significance as it connects to the subsequent stories of Episode Aranea, Episode Lunafreya, and Episode Noctis, so please look forward to it.

—The novel also includes the story of Episode Ardyn?

Osanai: Yes, it does. I focused on how the story would develop from Ardyn’s section to Noct’s while writing the original story and passed it over to the author Eishima-sensei to turn it into a novel. The ending was decided over a year ago, and I believe it’ll prove satisfactory.

—So we can trust the novel’s cover illustration?

Osanai: Of course. We first started this series [of DLC] with the theme of a “grand finale,” and [the novel] contains the story leading up to that point. This is why we thought it’d be okay for Ardyn’s story to be on the dark side. By the way, Aranea’s is pretty light-hearted. (laughs) Luna’s and Noct’s stories are quite serious. [The novel is] a piece of work designed to “deliver a new ending for fans,” and we've worked on the scenario while carefully choosing elements that will leave an impression.

—When the new series of DLCs was first announced, an illustration of Ardyn, Noct and the others together in harmony was also revealed. Does it have any relation to the novel?

Terada: When we were drawing up a plan for the DLCs, the first thing we decided on was the ending. At that time, we asked ourselves what kind of finale to FFXV would most satisfy the players and held a competition within the art team. A game that the fans have always followed—at the end of it all, what would they want to see? One of the pieces drawn was that artwork. Then we proceeded to construct the story with it in mind. That isn’t to say that the novel will be directly connected to the illustration, but it represents the goal we had in mind.

—In Episode Ardyn, it seems like Bahamut is the ringleader behind everything, and we’re still left with some parts that feel unresolved. May I ask about that?

Osanai: First, Bahamut did want to get rid of daemons from the world. To do so, Bahamut conferred upon Ardyn his mission to spread the Starscourge while also getting the kings of Lucis to accumulate power. Then, by having Noct take down Ardyn, he planned to eliminate the daemons in one clean sweep.

—So the Starscourge had to first be spread?

Osanai: That’s right. Bahamut isn’t directly involved with the daemon outbreak, but there’s a reason it was necessary. By the way, Episode Ardyn is the prologue of the four episodes, so we purposely tried to get players to have these questions, like “could the true mastermind be…”

Terada: You can stop there! The rest will be in the novel!

—I guess the only option is to read the book. (laughs)

Osanai: I was ordered to stop (laughs), but please read Luna’s and Noct’s sections in the novel for answers to these questions arising from Episode Ardyn.