Prompto: This Heartbreaking Story Detail Changes Everything

How many of you guys actually got the loading screen? I'm genuinely curious how common it is! ~Darryl

if you chose "not really" when prompto asks you if you were worried about him you're a monster

If you pay attention to the last cutscene of chapter 10, Ardyn boards the train humming the chocobo theme, which is a really sinister clue.

I remember when Ardyn was boarding the train, right before the chase happened, he was whistling the chocobo theme. That put me on edge right away. Sure, Noct likes chocobos, but Prompto adores them, so I had a feeling that Prompto was the one Ardyn was going to target. Then the chase started, and the speech pattern and body language gave it away for me that it was Prompto that Noctis was chasing pretty much immediately. When Noctis wakes up and it looks like Prompto was beside him, I thought it was the real Prompto at first, but he referred to Ignis by name rather than the nickname Iggy that Prompto almost always uses, and up went the hairs on the back of my neck again, and once more the speech patterns gave it away. I love how they used subtle details to tell what was going on during the sequence. And it was heartbreaking that Noctis was so mad that he didn't pick up on any of it until it was too late.

As soon as I heard "Dude, are you seriously trying to kill me?" My jaw dropped. It clicked in my head pretty quickly that it was an illusion. However, SE got me with the gun scene. I didn't think Ardyn would play the same trick twice so fast. But I did feel that Prompto's reaction to Noctis attacking him the first time was too nonchalant.

In the sequence when Noctis is holding 'ardyn' onto the eall that was prompto, yes, buuut after noctis collapses, prompto runs away to ehere ignis and gladio are. that's why when noctis wakes up and 'prompto' sits with him, this one is actually ardyn. so the fight outside of the train is noctis partnering with ardyn

I knew Ardyn switch with Prompto on top of the train, i had no idea he did so earlier within the train, i thought that was Ardyn himself mocking Noctis.

I wonder who thought that explaining this in the loading screen was a good idea..

It's interesting that when Ardyn says to Noctis "I believe I've earned the right to call you Noct" is referencing to the time when Noctis and "Prompto" are fighting off the MTs. You weren't fighting with Prompto, you were fighting with Ardyn pretending to be Prompto. You can see hints of it in the non-tech battle dialogue, too and the way "Prompto" speaks in a slightly different way.

I figured it was prompto when he said 'dude' in that sequence, mostly because it just didn't fit Ardyn at all to me in the story, I even tried in a futile way to not chase him :/

I've been telling people FF15 is deeper than they think but people need story spelled out for them. When Ignis is blinded and the group looks after hem i thought that was great character development. then at the end when Noct admits to the group that he accepted his coming fate yet he appreciates his boys for sticking through. i thought that held great weight. Idk.

I've seen the loading screen on all three of my playthroughs, thought it was normal. Interestingly, during the part after you wake up, Prompto appears to be in the guest player slot (pause menu), not in his normal spot. It's possible at that point that your partner was Ardyn, although that's less for certain

This is a pretty old video, but I recently replayed it and there's one more tiny detail I noticed that I hadn't picked up on before. Spoilers ahead, obviously. When you go to rescue Prompto from the prison cell in Zegnautus Keep, if you look at the cell to the right of the one Prompto is held in, you can see it's not set up like the other cells. It's got office furniture, including a desk. Upon the desk is a teapot, a radio and a microphone - in contrast to the other cells, with nothing but bunks and buckets (and the occasional dead Goblin). That's a workspace. And, don't get me wrong, but most of the Niffs don't seem like tea drinkers to me. It looks to me as though the teapot likely belongs to Ardyn, which together with the microphone, seems very much as though much of the taunting of Noctis that was done earlier in the Keep, with him chasing the MT disguised as Prompto and such, was happening right in Prompto's earshot. I mean, it's pretty subjective, but it's a tiny detail that just twists the knife for me about what the hell was going on in there. It's subtle as hell and I love it.

I don't think a lot of folks realized it during their first play throughs. it wasn't until various tumblrs and reddit users pointed it out a couple days after (most) players beat the game. you really have to hand it to Darin DePaul and Robbie Daymond- their acting skills were phenomenal during that sequence. Bonus points, since they're both theater kids.

Lol, I didn't know that loading screen wasn't standard. For the first part of this video I was trying to figure out why you were explaining the whole situation bc I thought it was common knowledge, it's cool that the game apparently switches things up like that. Makes me feel special for getting that piece of information haha.

This is why Prompto is probably my favourite video game characters of all time. While he's so fun and happy and bubbly, he's carrying around huge anxieties, insecurities, and does everything in his power not to ever let it show. His friends, specifically Noctis, are his whole entire world, so knowing that Noctis is actually trying to hurt him on the train is heartbreaking. It gets even more heartbreaking when you play Episode Prompto and learn about the sheer amount of turmoil and torment Prompto was going through, convinced that the only people he has in the world have deserted him, and more than that, actually HATE him. And when the boys are finally reunited, Prompto's first question to him, "were you worried about me?" makes so much sense, knowing now the absolute hell poor Prompto had been through the whole time. What a stellar character.

🙁 I feel bad...I had no idea I was attacking him and I picked "Yeah" during that dialogue. Completely missed it

I did get that loading screen, and I spent the next 10 minutes playing back what just happened in my head realising that Noctis was trying to kill Prompto, and pushed him off the train.. and that Prompto was now alone and didn't know what went wrong or if his friends were even going to come for him, or if they'd branded him a traitor and would never rescue him. I never considered however that Episode Prompto could be about that time in between him being pushed off the train and being rescued, and that makes me very excited. If this theme continues, like Gladio's being about when he left the group to find Cor, maybe Ignis' will be about the 2 weeks after he was blinded and how he first begun to cope?

I feel like if I was a final fantasy character. I’d definitely be Prompto. He’s such a bubbly character but deep down inside there’s this hidden pain and shame from where he’s from. I was the same for my longest years that it drove me into depression. I love his character and most definitely is the most relatable one in the group for me.

I missed it the first time I went through it. Then I started thinking about the scene and how something about Ardyn's speech just felt off and suddenly everything just clicked into place for me. Rescuing Prompto was the final piece that convinced me. Prompto's uncertainty about whether Noctis would be worried about him or not wouldn't make a whole lot of sense without that scene on the train. Once you take that scene into consideration though and recognize that "Ardyn" was actually Prompto the entire time, everything Prompto says when he is rescued makes perfect sense.