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Square Enix announced during a live stream overnight that Hajime Tabata, director on Final Fantasy XV, has left the company to form his own studio.
As a result of Hajime's departure, three of the four planned expansions for Final Fantasy XV – Episodes Noctis, Aranea, and Lunafreya – have been cancelled. Episode Arydyn is still in development however and will launch in March 2019.
Tabata-san had worked on a number of Final Fantasy titles in recent years, including Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy Type-0. He took over as diretor on Final Fantasy XV from Tetsuya Nomura back in 2013.
'I was able to gain so much experience with my time at Square Enix. Every title I was able to a part of means a lot to me. However, FFXV stood out from the group as it was a special project for me which I went all in. Therefore, I decided to take this opportunity to officially announced my departure from FFXV to all the fans who have supported the title across the globe,' he said in a message to fans.
As a result of the cancelled DLC, Final Fantasy XV global brand director, Akio Ofuji, said that resources can instead be pumped into a new triple-A game that is currently in the works at Luminous Productions.
Final Fantasy XV was released on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in November 2016, and arrived on PC earlier this year.
