they said in the recent interview the emperor was a focal point of the story right away, or at least the "spot" he takes up in the story, i think just the character got reskinned? i heard something about another character filling his spot before, but the function he holds in the story was always filled
Tbh, I think this is just a marketing pitch. They can't exactly admit that the rewrite resulted in cut companion content and messed up main plot. Because the way the tadpoles worked with Daisy in the EA was different, and there are still leftover lines from the narrator in the full game referring to that. My guess is that the emperor was a planned character, but for a different role.
