FFXV Director Hajime Tabata resigns from Square Enix, starting own venture
We don't know what the new project is, but Tabata hopes to solidify it as his next challenge after Final Fantasy XV.
Revealed late yesterday evening, there's been a major shake-up at Square Enix and Luminous Productions. Game Director and Luminous Productions COO Hajime Tabata has resigned from his position as of October 31, 2018. Tabata has worked on Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, the Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV film, Final Fantasy XV itself, and many more, but is moving on to a new project.
With Tabata's departure, Bloomberg reporter Yuji Nakamura says that Square decided they can't or didn't want to continue to create the Final Fantasy XV DLC without him.
Timeline and causality in FF15 drama:
— Yuji Nakamura (@ynakamura56) November 8, 2018
1. Tabata quit to start new venture
2. Square decided they can't or didn't want to make DLCs without him
3. Square took writedown ("extraordinary loss") on resources already allocated for DLCs
In that order. From public info and my sources
In his official statement that was read aloud during Square Enix's livestream, Tabata revealed that he has a project that he wants to solidify as his "next challenge after FFXV." Due to that, he's leaving the company and starting his own business. He doesn't say so explicitly, but one could assume that Hajime Tabata's next project is a game of some kind and that he's going to be creating his own studio.
Final Fantasy XV: Episode Ardyn, the one piece of DLC to survive these moves, has received a March 2019 release window. The FFXV: Comrades multiplayer mode goes standalone on consoles this December and there's a crossover with the online RPG Final Fantasy 14 also slated for December.
Square Enix reported a $33 million loss in its latest fiscal report and, the tweet from Nakamura states, a large chunk of that loss comes from assets that were already allocated for the canceled Final Fantasy XV DLC. Also stated during the livestream, while the DLC itself isn't being made, the remaining team at Luminous hopes to bring the ideas for Episodes Aranea, Lunafreya, and Noctis to life in other ways with continued support. Stay tuned to Shacknews for additional updates.
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