I fuckin hate how the story and scope has shrunk. These games were once about a world-spanning adventure and a you could get a great feel for the world ending threats BY your travels around the world. You weren't stuck in just a region or a few connecting countries.
Had FFXV been made back in the day, it would've started with the bros out training somewhere and encounter the first "tutorial boss" that has the battle stance where if you attack it, it does a powerful counterattack(so you have to wait until it gets out of that stance), they'd return to Lucis and there'd be a few or more scenes occurring within the city and palace that not only develop the bros, but develop their relationship with other characters(Gladio with Clarus and Iris, Noct with Regis). It would've gone down similar to Versus, the bros being there as the treaty went down and them having to escape the city. The story would continue on a linear path(but with some freedom of exploration), while we get cutaway scenes of the Niflheim conspiring. Hell, the return to Insomnia to fight Ardyn would've been the "halfway" point of the game. You kill him, but then continue on as his darkness is still threatening the world(and you still could travel the world in its entirety, because of FFXV was made back then, it would've been a world-spanning adventure). It would end in some mysterious and bizarre final dungeon and against Ardyn's true final form, some evolved entity of living darkness that needs to be purged for the dawn to arrive.