From the FFXV Official Works interview with Kenichi Shida (director of Episode Gladio and Episode Prompto), Takefumi Terada (director of Episode Ignis), and Kazuya Takahashi (director of Comrades and did some main game stuff like Tours), some interesting stuff about Ep Ignis:

About the Multiending Change in Episode Ignis

Next, please tell us about the concept behind Episode Ignis.

Terada: First, we decided on three important things. The first was that this was going to be the story of Ignis putting his life on the line to save his king. The second was to have a game with a multiending format that would stand against the cruel fate in the main game. The third was to do total fanservice. The execution and story were designed on the principle of satisfying people who love Ignis and FFXV with all our might.

Shida: It’s the culmination of everything so far.

[Long, so continued under the cut.]

How did you decide on Ravus making an appearance as a guest character?

Terada: In the main game Ravus was established as joining the Empire in order to protect Lunafreya. What we decided first was that Ravus would be unable to handle Lunafreya’s death and that, overcome with rage and hatred, he would attack Noctis and Ignis… we had the part with that scene. But then, when we decided the guest character for Episode Gladiolus, the overseas development team said, “We want to fight with Ravus and have link strikes with him.” We thought, “Oh, huh. We hadn’t considered that,” and rethought things. [Trans. note: not 100% sure on this.] That’s how we got the idea to have him go along with Ignis to save Lunafreya.

Shida: We have an environment where we don’t just get fixated on the planner’s viewpoint, but also listen to opinions from the designers, and sometimes overseas departments outside of the development.

Terada: There are times when we think their opinion is right and we change things right away. Of course, there’s also times when it’s hard to make changes.

So the structure of the story changed from having Ravus be the opponent in the final battle to how it is now.

Terada: We changed the timing of when Ravus would appear. Instead of just having him present at Lunafreya’s death, we’d start with him heading toward the altar with Ignis.

How did you decide on this scenario that covers the Ignis’s loss of sight in the main game?

Terada: At the initial stage we decided that Ignis would lose his sight as the price of choosing to risk his life putting on the ring. The idea was that he escaped without losing his life because he wanted to protect Noctis, and since the Kings of Yore that reside in the ring also can’t lose Noctis, the result is in the interest of both sides.

Ignis’s passion was surprising, but is that his fundamental personality?

Terada: We thought that gap was his biggest appeal. In my favorite scene in the main game, the scene in Chapter 10 where Noctis and Gladiolus are arguing, there’s a moment when Ignis says, “Enough, Gladio!” and though he doesn’t raise his voice at all, you can tell he’s extremely angry. We thought we would address that gap in the DLC and let out that unexpected, reckless side of Ignis.

Takahashi: This is just a personal opinion, but when we were developing the main game, I was worried that Ignis wouldn’t be popular. So we increased his scenes in Chapter 01. We gave him a few more highlights like having him say “Let’s make camp” and having him give tactical battle instructions. Gladiolus and Prompto stood out more, so I thought Ignis would definitely end up the unfortunate child, then I watched in amazement as he became a hit character.

Terada: From the very beginning of development of the main game, Ignis was difficult. Gladiolus had muscle and power. Prompto was the gunslinging cheerful moodmaker. The two of them are characters that are easy to drop into an action game, but Ignis is the strategist, so he’s not the kind of character to take action on gut feeling. I was dealing with this from FFXV’s pre-production stages, but I remember still having a lot of trouble with it at the beginning of development.

Takahashi: When I was making the tours later in the main game with my team, since Ignis’s special characteristics were “the mom” and “the glasses guy,” we thought, oh, okay, we’ll put in cooking quests, or events where a chocobo takes his glasses, that kind of thing. Then when I saw Episode Ignis, I rediscovered him as this passionate guy. I thought, what a good character.

Did you decide the theme of the tours depending on the character?

Takahashi: That’s right. Apart from the main scenario of FFXV, there were staff members in charge of establishing the characters, and they made a kind of guide that said “This character thinks like this and acts like this.” We looked at that, used the character’s special characteristics as a theme, and thought we’d make some fun quests digging down more into them.





[Translator’s note: If you spot any mistakes, please drop a correction in my ask box and I’ll fix it up.]

[Edited to make Ignis’s Chapter 10 line match the ingame translation]