Final Fantasy XV Director Hajime Tabata Resigns from Square Enix, Several FFXV DLC Episodes Canceled

Final Fantasy XV director Hajime Tabata and CEO of Luminous Productions is resigning from Luminous and Square Enix to start his own company effective October 31, 2018. Square Enix also announced a spate of cancellations for three of the four planned FFXV DLC Episodes.

In a special Square Enix livestream, the company first announced that Tabata has resigned from Luminous and Square Enix. "In regards to my next endeavors and near future, I have a project that I truly wish to solidify as my next challenge after FFXV. For that reason, I have decided to leave my current position and start my own business in order to achieve my goal."

Tabata worked as a member of Square Enix's Final Fantasy committee overseeing the RPG franchise and has worked as a director or producer on several Final Fantasy spinoffs, as well as Parasite Eve The Third Birthday. FFXV was Tabata's first mainline Final Fantasy game as director.

Luminous was a separate company founded under the Square Enix banner earlier this year, but at a recent Square Enix quarterly report the company announced that it will refocus Luminous into a developer of "large-scale, high-quality AAA game titles, which best leverage [Luminous'] strengths." Square Enix also took a massive $33 million loss as a result of this decision.

Square Enix also announced that three of the four FFXV DLC are cancelled including Episodes for Aranea, Lunafreya, and Noctis. FFXV Episode Ardyn will release on March 2019.

Furthermore, Square Enix announced that FFXV's multiplayer expansion "Comrades" will become a standalone game playable without FFXV and starting December 13 will be sold separately. Players who purchased Comrades as an expansion will get the new version for free. Sadly the PC version of Comrades has also been cancelled.

Hard to say this was a livestream filled with good news. Either way it sounds like the next installment of Final Fantasy will once again undergo a massive shift. You can read our review of FFXV here.