Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV

Setting

Kingsglaive takes place on the Earth-like world of Eos, occurring in parallel to the opening events of Final Fantasy XV. The kingdom of Lucis is home to the hallowed Crystal, which the ruling Caelum dynasty uses to defend themselves from invaders via a magical barrier known as the Wall. The Crystal, traditionally treated as a gift from the world's deities and kept in a special chamber within the Royal Citadel, holds magical power only accessible through the Ring of the Lucii, a ring passed down the line of Lucis' kings.

In recent years, the militaristic and technologically-advanced empire of Niflheim has conquered the other nations and is currently at war with Lucis. In this war, Lucis is protected by the Kingsglaive—an elite corps wielding the royal family's magical power made up of immigrants from beyond the city limits. The film opens with the reigning king, Regis Lucis Caelum CXIII, accepting terms of peace with Niflheim: as part of the treaty, Regis must cede the territories around the crown city of Insomnia to Niflheim and marry his son Prince Noctis to Lunafreya Nox Fleuret, former princess of Tenebrae.

Plot

During a visit to Tenebrae, Regis and Noctis—who is recuperating from a near-death experience—are targeted for assassination by Niflheim. Tenebrae is subsequently attacked, and in the invasion Queen Sylva is killed by imperial general Glauca. Regis attempts to flee with Lunafreya, but she decides to stay with her brother Ravus; both subsequently become subjects under Niflheim's rule.

Twelve years later, the Kingsglaive fight to protect Lucis's borders from attacks by monsters and Niflheim's forces. During one such operation, Nyx defies his orders to withdraw to rescue his friend Libertus from one of Niflheim's Daemons. Regis, seeing that the empire will eventually overcome Lucis's defenses due to his waning power, accepts imperial chancellor Ardyn Izunia's offer of peace: the war will end on the conditions that Lucis surrender all territories beyond Insomnia to Niflheim, and that Noctis and Lunafreya wed. This causes dissension among the Kingsglaive, who feel Regis is abandoning their families. Two days before the treaty is to be signed, Kingsglaive member Crowe is sent on a mission to escort Lunafreya to Lucis, but is killed en route. Her death enrages Libertus, causing him to leave the Kingsglaive and join a group of Lucian rebels. At a party dedicated to the signing of the peace treaty, attended by both Regis and Niflheim's emperor Iedolas Aldercapt, Lunafreya meets with Nyx before being secretly abducted by Glauca.

Nyx discovers this and finds that Niflheim has stationed their army outside Insomnia. Regis agrees to deploy the Kingsglaive, although their commander Drautos has disappeared. While Nyx succeeds in rescuing Lunafreya, many of the Kingsglaive turn on him; all but Nyx, Lunafreya and rebel leader Lazarus perish in the ensuing battle. At the treaty-signing ceremony, the Niflheim delegation springs a surprise attack and kills the ruling council, while spies within the city allow the imperial army to enter by destroying the Wall with help from the rebels. Lunafreya and Nyx reach the Citadel just as Regis is battling Glauca. During the fight, Glauca cuts the Ring of the Lucii from Regis's hand. Ravus attempts to put on the Ring, but it rejects him and severely burns his arm before he can remove it. Nyx, Lunafreya and Regis retrieve the Ring and flee with Glauca in pursuit. Regis forces the two to go on without him, dying in his ensuing battle with Glauca. Meanwhile, Aldercapt and Ardyn—having successfully stolen the Crystal—flee Insomnia.

Summoned to the city plaza by a call from Drautos, Nyx and Lunafreya are cornered by Lazarus, who reveals himself to be Crowe's killer. Lazarus almost kills Nyx before being tricked by Lunafreya into putting on the Ring, resulting in his death. Drautos then appears, but he is attacked by Libertus, who reveals that Drautos is in fact Glauca. Just as Glauca is about to kill them, Nyx puts on the Ring. He is confronted by the spirits of the past kings of Lucis; initially rejected due to being not of their bloodline, his resolve and the threat to the Crystal persuade them to allow his use of their power at the cost of his life. After fending off Glauca, Nyx returns the Ring to Lunafreya before entrusting her to Libertus, telling them to flee. With the Ring's borrowed power he engages Glauca in a titanic battle throughout Insomnia, animating the city's statues of past rulers, known as the "Old Wall," to combat Niflheim's Daemons. Their fight ends as dawn approaches, with Nyx mortally wounding Glauca; Nyx dies shortly after as payment for using the Ring's power, wishing for Noctis to rule well in the future. In the aftermath, Libertus—now the sole survivor of the Kingsglaive—escorts Lunafreya out of the city, but she tells him to stay behind in the hope that he and Nyx can be reunited. Lunafreya then leaves with the Ring to find Noctis.

In a post-credits scene, Noctis and his companions are en route to Altissia when their car breaks down, leading into the opening scenes of Final Fantasy XV.

Voice cast

Other characters include the various members of the Kingsglaive and Regis' council: Banjō Ginga/John DeMita as Clarus Amicitia, Ayumi Fujimura/Alexa Kahn as Crowe Altius, Tomokazu Seki/Todd Haberkorn as Luche Lazarus, Wataru Takagi/Ben Diskin as Pelna Khara and Fuminori Komatsu/Max Mittelman as Tredd Furia. Unvoiced characters include Kingsglaive members Sonitus Bellum and Axis Arra, and General Glauca, supreme commander of Niflheim's military. While both English and Japanese voicetracks were produced, lip syncing for all versions was matched to the English voice work. The lead voice actors, such as Paul, were chosen so they would be recognized and appeal to a wide audience, in addition to their acting abilities. Casting was handled by Rui Kawada, who also acted as general project manager. Originally there were plans for both the movie and game voice cast to cross over, but they were scrapped due to budgetary and scheduling conflicts. The Japanese voice casting followed a similar model, choosing well-known actors for the lead roles.

Production

Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV forms part of the "Final Fantasy XV Universe", a multimedia project based around the 2016 video game Final Fantasy XV that includes the original net animation series Brotherhood: Final Fantasy XV: the story of XV, originally a spin-off title called Final Fantasy Versus XIII, was large enough to have covered several games, but as the team did not want to create any additional games, they decided to create additional media. While similar in style to the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII project, the media associated with Final Fantasy XV came before the game's release rather than after it, acting as insight into the world and characters. Final Fantasy XV and its associated media likewise initially was to hold a thematic connection to Fabula Nova Crystallis Final Fantasy, a compilation of games and associated media sharing a common mythos while boasting unconnected stories and settings. But has now distanced from the brand, the world of XV still uses its mythos and design elements. Kingsglaive was designed so it would not be necessary for people to watch for understanding of the main game. Despite this, references to the events of Kingsglaive were included in the game.

Kingsglaive was primarily developed by Visual Works, a division of Final Fantasy developer Square Enix dedicated to the creation of CGI cutscenes. The director was Takeshi Nozue. Nozue's previous notable experience with feature-length productions was Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children (2005). While he had been co-director for Advent Children, he was sole director for Kingsglaive. Hajime Tabata, the director of Final Fantasy XV, acted as producer. While compared upon reveal to Advent Children, it was stressed that the two served very different purposes: while Advent Children was designed for fans of its parent title Final Fantasy VII (1997), Kingsglaive was intended for both prospective players of Final Fantasy XV and people new to the Final Fantasy series, acting as an entry point into the narrative of Final Fantasy XV. The project was also much greater in scale than Advent Children, requiring help from multiple external studios. Nozue later commented that another aspect of Kingsglaive was to bolster sales of the game's platforms prior to release, with a movie offering a greater means of reaching potential buyers.

Production work on Kingsglaive began three years prior to its release, with full development beginning in 2014 after an extended period of preparatory work. From this point, production lasted approximately two and a half years. So the production could be managed in the short time available, the movie's development was separated into three phases, with each phase being dedicated to a particular part of the production process and run by a different unit director answering to Nozue. The movie went through multiple phases of trial and error until the final product was solidified. Kingsglaive was kept a secret until 2016 when it was near completion, as the developers felt that they had announced its parent video game too early. So as to remain close to the development of Final Fantasy XV, the lead staff of Kingsglaive moved from Visual Works to Business Division 2, the department of Square Enix responsible for the game's development. This was part of an overall shift in development methods when the game was changed from a spin-off to a mainline entry.

Prior to full production, the team created a tech demo to test the creation and movement of highly detailed models and environments. This tech demo was titled Agni's Philosophy. Previsualization was initially going to be done entirely in-house, but the team eventually decided to bring in The Third Floor, an external company specializing in previsualization. The Third Floor ended up handling around 40% of the work. In addition to the staff of Advent Children, Western companies in gaming and movie production were involved: Digic Pictures, who had worked on the graphics for the Assassin's Creed series; and Image Engine, who had worked on multiple films including Jurassic World (2015) and the television series Game of Thrones. According to Nozue, around 50 different companies were involved in the film's production: among these was Europe-based company Puppetworks Animation Studio. The internal team was estimated at around 50 people. The cooperation of studios overseas meant that work on the movie could proceed continuously. Without this external aid, Nozue estimated that they would have needed a staff of five hundred people to complete the film in the given timeframe. The animation was initially going to be handled in-house using the V-Ray software, but the team found it difficult to adapt the software to their needs. As Nozue wanted to use the experience and technology of Visual Works to create Kingsglaive, they decided to bring in experienced and dedicated outside help to handle V-Ray. This resulted in the cooperation with Digic Pictures, which included former staff from Square Enix's North American branch and were highly skilled in the creation of high-quality cutscenes. For procedural environmental elements such as falling rubble, they used the Houdini animation software.

Story and characters

The story of Kingsglaive was based around a portion of the original opening of Final Fantasy XV, which would have shown the invasion of Insomnia by Niflheim's army. This had to be cut from the game due to concerns over the volume of content, but as the team still wanted to show this event, they incorporated it into the plot of Kingsglaive. To ensure a connection between the movie and the game, both projects used the same shared script as their core. That script was written by Saori Itamuro based on a draft by Kazushige Nojima. The team also wanted a proper cinematic experience that would appeal to a large audience, so they brought in a professional screenwriter, Takashi Hasegawa, to create a full-length cinematic script. Los Angeles-based company Hydra Entertainment assisted with creating the script alongside Hasegawa, in addition to writing assistance from Hollywood staff. The storyline was designed to complement and set the stage for the events of Final Fantasy XV without revealing major plot elements from the game. The movie was created for a primarily English audience, with the script translation handled by Square Enix's in-house localization team. As many team members were Final Fantasy fans, frequent nostalgic references to earlier entries in the series were included. The central theme for the overall story of Final Fantasy XV was the bond between father and son: Kingsglaive represented the theme from the father Regis' point of view. According to Nozue, another key element during the early segment of the movie was displaying how the world's society sees Regis's responsibilities, along with the emotions involved in such a role.

The main goal for the film's characters was to portray them as normal people with character flaws, rather than magical superheroes. Nyx was an original character created for the movie with no connection to the events of the game, intended to act as a medium for the wider audience Kingsglaive was aimed at. Nyx also provided a medium for the story themes surrounding immigration issues, which in turn brought the audience closer to the main cast. While Nyx was original, multiple key characters from the game played prominent roles, particularly Regis, Lunafreya, and Ardyn Izunia. Lunafreya was highlighted as the "keystone" connecting the game, the movie, and the anime series Brotherhood. While her role in the film was not an active one, her strength was conveyed through her single-minded devotion to her goals. Regis was extensively redesigned for the movie, which in turn altered his appearance in the game. Initially created with a younger appearance, the team wanted him to have a proper regal air so he would have presence in Kingsglaive, so they aged the character significantly and created a story-based context for the change. The character Crowe's hair was based on the hairstyle for the main female protagonist of Agni's Philosophy. The overall theme of the Final Fantasy XV universe was "a fantasy based on reality": to reinforce this, Square Enix collaborated with Audi on a custom version of their Audi R8 model as the royal family's personal transport, and included references to real-world brands and companies such as Japan Airlines.

The characters' body and facial movements were taken using motion capture: these included capturing static figures for dialogue segments, and full-body capture for action sequences. The motion actors provided the basis for their characters' appearance: the actors were chosen based on how well they fitted with the staff's vision for the characters. The motion actors' facial expressions were captured using a special head-mounted rig the team had previously developed for tech demos in 2012. The compartmentalization of development meant that the characters were voiced by different actors. When the character designs were being created, Nozue needed to regularly consult professional hairstylists to ensure that their chosen hairstyles for characters would be feasible in real life. For characters who appeared in the game such as Ardyn, the team tried to keep their facial features as close as possible to their in-game counterpart. The capital of Lucis, Insomnia, was based in general on international cities, while its core was based on Tokyo: these Western elements were added based on fan criticism of Insomnia being too similar to Tokyo during the game's early stages. The design of the Niflheim airships was an updated version of those in the earlier days of Final Fantasy XV's development, when it was known as Versus XIII.

Music

The film's score was composed by John R. Graham, with the main theme by Yoko Shimomura, the composer for Final Fantasy XV. The score for Kingsglaive was described by Nozue as "Shimomura meets Hollywood". This effect was reinforced by Graham's work. According to Graham, Nozue wanted a complex musical score. The harmonics and themes change throughout the score to create both an ambiguous atmosphere and a sense of impending tragedy and loss. Graham was brought on board to create a score that would fill the film's world and act as a counterbalance to Shimomura's music from the game, which was incorporated into the overall score. Due to the themes and events of Kingsglaive, Graham needed his music to reflect the weight, contradictions, and shifting "light and dark" perspectives of the characters and locations. To achieve this, he used a combination of live orchestra and electronic elements. He wrote more than 100 minutes of music. Recording was done in Nashville using a symphonic orchestra. The soundtrack was released as a two-disc album on September 7, 2016.

Release and promotion

Kingsglaive was first announced in March 2016 at "Uncovered: Final Fantasy XV", a media event dedicated to the game. Its release was handled by publisher Square Enix and distributor Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. At the time, no theatrical release was announced for the West. In June at the 2016 Electronic Entertainment Expo, it was announced that Kingsglaive would receive a limited theatrical release in North America, beginning on August 19; its theatrical release was handled by Stage 6 Films with Vertical Entertainment and Square Enix. A further week's run was announced for some areas. It was later announced that Le Grand Rex would be hosting a French premiere for Kingsglaive on September 15. Kingsglaive released in Japanese cinemas through Aniplex on July 9, 2016. Tickets went on sale on April 23. Prior to its theatrical release, a television special titled "XV Universe Report" aired in Japan, featuring behind-the-scenes information and interviews regarding Final Fantasy XV and its associated media. Kingsglaive was included on Blu-ray in the "Deluxe Edition" and "Ultimate Collector's Edition" of Final Fantasy XV, which were released worldwide on November 29, 2016. The movie was also included in the "Final Fantasy XV Film Collection", a box set which includes Final Fantasy XV and Brotherhood. The digital version of the film was released on streaming and download services on August 30 2016; the standalone Blu-ray and DVD versions was released on October 4 2016.

Box office

The film debuted in Japan in 10th place, selling 22,818 tickets for a total of 35,516,460 yen (US$345,507) in two days. By July 20, over 70,000 tickets had been sold, bringing a total gross of over 105,000,000 yen in Japan (US$0.9 million). Its high takings were attributed to positive word of mouth following the initial release. During its limited run in the United States, the film grossed a further $190,000.

Critical response

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 13%, based on 13 reviews, with an average rating of 4.8/10. On Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average to reviews, the film has a score of 35 out of 100, based on 10 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Critics were generally negative about the film, although popular opinion was more positive.

Christian Holub of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a score of C+, describing the film as a long cutscene for fans of the game rather than something equivalent to the recent Warcraft movie adaptation: he said that the visuals "offer a deep dive into the Uncanny Valley", and praised the lead actors' efforts with a script he found weak. Meghan Sullivan, writing for IGN, gave the film a score of 6/10: she called the film "gorgeous", and praised the character design despite some issues with realistic facial expressions, and found the story was bogged down by the political elements when the action side and the plot focusing on the Kingsglaive worked. In contrast, she called the voicework "solid", saying that the leads brought their characters to life and prevented the script from sounding too ridiculous while the supporting cast was weaker overall. She summed up Kingsglaive as "a very beautiful and very confusing movie". Andrew Barker for Variety frequently questioned whether Kingsglaive could count as a movie, as he often felt like he was watching a recorded gameplay video, praising the visuals while generally faulting the plot as rushed and too full of throwaway characters. Wired's Matt Kamen gave the film a score of 5/10. He greatly praised the film's visuals, and was positive about the lead actors' performances and the action scenes. His criticism was leveled at its poor portrayal of the female characters, called the narrative confusing, and felt that it focused too much on setting up the events of Final Fantasy XV. His main feeling was that, while it held promise, it relied too much on character stereotypes and world building, calling it "a gorgeous but over-stuffed slice of fanservice".

Eurogamer's Aoife Wilson found it difficult to pin down why she had enjoyed the film, as she found it "bloated and badly done," ending up saying that, despite its flaws, it felt like part of the Final Fantasy franchise. She again praised the visuals, but found the dialogue to be the film's weakest point despite the efforts of the lead actors. She summed up the movie by saying that "as a two-hour piece of promotional material for a game, it works". Scott Clay of RPGFan called watching the movie a necessity for fully understanding the world of Final Fantasy XV, and praised it for its visuals and action scenes, although he noted that there were probably better action films available. He felt that the film managed to get him invested in the story of Final Fantasy XV, saying that "Kingsglaive is no masterpiece — in fact, it's nowhere close to one — but it does its job nicely by setting up what could potentially be a very cool story". Polygon's Ashley Oh missed the character development usually seen in the Final Fantasy games although the cast did their best with the script, and while she found the visuals "jaw-droppingly gorgeous" and enjoyed the references to other Final Fantasy titles, she found the story "very weak". She also faulted the lack of strong female characters, something that had been a noted feature in earlier Final Fantasy titles. In contrast to the majority of reviewers, Anthony John Agnello of GamesRadar gave the film a perfect score of 5/5 stars, calling it "an expert blend of world building, humanity, and the magical strangeness of Final Fantasy" and praising it for balancing its scene setting for Final Fantasy XV with creating a relatable movie experience, in addition to lauding its visuals and relatable characters. GameSpot's Alexa Ray Corriea was also fairly positive: while she noted that it was not a coherent film on its own, she felt that it was a first step by Square Enix to regain fan trust after earlier missteps. She generally enjoyed the story despite a few contrived elements, and gave unanimous praise to the film's large-scale and more intimate visuals.