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[Draugoth]

Speaking in a new interview with 4Gamer, the director of the fifteenth main entry in the series opened up about his split with Square Enix, highlighting how he was essentially forced to leave and start his own company, JP Games. Tabata-san also talked about the Final Fantasy XV DLC Dawn of the Future, saying that the partial cancellation wasn't his decision. He regrets the development of the new additional content for the game was cut, as they were not able to keep their promises to players. Still, the frustration of the situation motivated him to make up for it by developing new games. One of them is a console RPG project being developed with another unspecified company.

I understand. I'm sorry. The decision to cancel the DLC wasn't mine, but because I couldn't stop it, at the time I was even more discouraged. However, the frustration I felt became motivation to create a better game in a freer position " said Hajime Tabata.

As there are colleagues who share the same feelings, I would like to try a new challenge with this team and also offer the players who were disappointed at the time a new and interesting game to make up for it."

 

[Arsic]

What’s his new game ?

 

[Pejo]

He was really put between a rock and a hard place, picking up that project. I don't think the final product ended up being very good, but it's hardly all his fault.

Still, yea, I don't think anyone thought anything else other than S-E cancelling the DLC, seems like a weird article. Who else other than the publisher/developers would cancel a DLC?

 

[kiphalfton]

Guy needs to move on.

Game sucked, and not much else to say.

Honestly he should act like he never had anything to do with it.

 

[IFireflyl]

The game was garbage. That was not the fault of Square Enix.

 

[Mister Wolf]

It was an awful game anyway. Nothing of value was lost.

 

[Sushi_Combo]

Too bad because the game was awesome

 

[Arsic]

Too bad because the game was awesome

It was an awful game anyway. Nothing of value was lost.

The duality of man.

 

[Torrent of Pork]

I quite liked FF15, but I played the Royal edition with all the DLC, and watched a few plot explanation videos. The plot, once all the disparate pieces are put in the proper order, is actually very poignant, and I maintain that 15 had one of the best villains in the series. The sumbitch painstakingly manipulated the entire world so that he wins no matter what, his most desired outcome being what plays out in the end of the game.

 

[Celcius]

95% of the people in this thread are dead wrong. FF15 was amazing and is my 3rd favorite FF game of all time, behind FF7 and FF14. I was reallllly looking forward to episode Aranea (and the rest as well) so I’m still salty over this getting cancelled lol. But we all know it was Square and not him who made the decision.

 

[Tiago Rodrigues]

Wait...people in here blaming him for the way FFXV released seem to not even know the story?
FFXIII Versus was announced in 2006 (!!!) alongside FFXIII, back when Tetsuia Nomura was the game's director. The guy only became the game's director in December 2013. Less than 3 years from the game releasing. The game by then was supposed to be released on PS3.

From wikipedia:

Development began in 2006 as a spin-off for the PlayStation 3 called Final Fantasy Versus XIII, as part of the Fabula Nova Crystallis Final Fantasy, a subseries of games linked by a common mythos, and ran in Square Enix's proprietary Crystal Tools engine. Developed by the team behind the Kingdom Hearts series, it was intended to be a darker entry in the Final Fantasy series than allowed in the main series.[48][49][50] Nomura was the original director, designer, and created the initial concept and scenario.[42][44] The project suffered from a prolonged and troubled development, only making fragmentary appearances over the following six years.[51][52] As early as 2007, the project's scale prompted talks of rebranding it as the next mainline entry. With the internal unveiling of the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, it was decided to change it into a mainline entry, with a proposed PS3 version being scrapped due to technical troubles. The game's engine also changed, shifting to the company's new proprietary Luminous Engine.[2][53][54] At the time of its rebranding and shift to next-generation consoles in 2012, Versus XIII was described as being on 20-25% complete, with Tabata saying it never took shape.[55][56]

When Tabata took over from Nomura, the entire development team was reshuffled and development started over again, although he worked as a co-director with Nomura until late 2013 to ensure the project remained as true as possible to its original vision

The guy basically became director when the game was well in development..right when it was decided it wouldn't release on PS3 but on PS4, when it was decided a new engine was going to be used AND when the previous director left (even if they worked as co-directors for 1 year).

They basically developed an engine AND a game at the same time. The guy had an impossible task in his hands.

I'm not saying he doesn't have any blame in this...maybe e he does...but the man was basically asked to do lemonade from oranges. And he almost did. No matter how great you are as a director, his task was tough, specially considering your predecessor is Nomura.

 

[peronmls]

Honestly, Square Enix ruined everything. Their management is horrible. There is a lack of communication and direction. They constantly shuffle management around.

 

[LordCBH]

I enjoyed 15 a lot, and they put in a shit ton of work between launch and the release of the Royal edition. Was looking forward to the DLC, but I can’t blame square at all for deciding to move on after a decade plus of paying for development of this game.

 

[Larxia]

What I'm really confused about is that the whole timing makes no sense.
They announced these DLCs way after the release of the game (a year and a half I think), which means they were satisfied enough with the sales of the game to produce more DLCs, so why then cancelling them out of nowhere?
It would be more understandable if they announced these DLCs right from the beginning, like if these were part of the first season pass, and then the game totally flopped and they decided to cancel them, but here it wasn't the case at all.

Why do you decide, almost 2 years after releasing your game, to announce new DLCs, and then randomly decide to cancel them. They should have been quite familiar with the economy of the game and everything to take decisions by that time. Square Enix really makes very weird decisions.

 

[Kumomeme]

released unfinished game with intend to patch things later is bad practice.

it is even a bad practice and bad mentality for live service game like MMO and yet they do it with single player game.

"The belief that everything can be fixed in future patches." - release first, patch things later is one of problem with XIV 1.0. its like they didnt learn a things from the game that almost rumored bankrupted the company and perhaps distrupted development of the original Versus 13. we even see problem like this occur with other game out there.

dlc should be a content that come over complete package of product. not to serve as patch hole work over existing missing incomplete main content.

 

[YukiOnna]

Cool, but your XV is not what I want to hear about nor the person who should be talking about it. You only came on after the fact so don't worry about it.

 

[GHound]

Him and Hideo Baba getting the boot were two of the few wholly good decisions Square has made in the last 10 years.
I await his single button combat mobile game.

 

[lyan]

Guy needs to move on.

Game sucked, and not much else to say.

Honestly he should act like he never had anything to do with it.

Well the press loves to ask about it.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

The only one good decision from SE

 

[Bkdk]

It’s an odd decision for sure, the cancelled dlc supposedly to add the most story content and would have helped most to improve user reviews for this game, yet they choose to release all the other dlc like character episodes and multiplayer first. They really should have release this cancelled dlc that would add another ending in rather than the other ones.

 

[MagiusNecros]

Tabata kinda got screwed with like every project he's been on. 3rd Birthday, FF Type 0, FF15. Now he just makes mobile games in his own company.