hajimetabata
Latest
'Final Fantasy XV' loses its director and most DLCs
Final Fantasy XV has lost its director Hajime Tabata and the majority of its upcoming DLCs. The news was announced during a Square Enix livestream where the publisher also showed a teaser for the one surviving DLC, Episode Ardyn (due March 2019). Episode Aranea, Episode Lunafreya, and Episode Noctis, which formed the "Dawn of the Future" DLC plan, have all been cancelled.
The director of 'Final Fantasy XV' isn't finished yet
Final Fantasy XV was a long time coming. After a decade of delays, it's not surprising that both Square Enix and the game's director, Hajime Tabata, are saying they aren't finished with Noctis and his bro squad. With not even a whisper of Final Fantasy XVI, the rest of this year (and part of 2018) is focused on the Final Fantasy XV universe: PC versions, more chapter expansions, more mobile iterations and a multiplayer mode. I talked to Tabata, the man who steered the 15th iteration to the finish line, here at Gamescom and he explained what worked, what didn't and somehow tricked me into evangelizing about that mobile game. (Unfortunately, he didn't say a thing about that bizarre Assassin's Creed collaboration, mere hours before it was announced.)
Everything hinges on 'Final Fantasy XV'
Final Fantasy XV has to be perfect. After a decade of development hell, a name change from Versus XIII to XV, a complete mechanical overhaul and a director swap, die-hard series fans aren't just hungry for the game; they're reeling. Many players who were excited about Final Fantasy Versus XIII as teenagers remain interested in Final Fantasy XV as adults. After all, the Final Fantasy series debuted in 1987 and played a pivotal role in plenty of fans' young lives. But as the years have dragged on, a ripple of discontent has nudged against this fierce loyalty. In the decade of delays, some longtime players have simply declared the franchise dead.
'Final Fantasy: Type-0' is a great documentary within an OK game
"I've never experienced war myself," Hajime Tabata, director of Final Fantasy Type-0, told me in an interview this past January. We were discussing why his new entry in Square-Enix's nearly 30-year-old role-playing game series often feels like a cross between The History Channel and Ridley Scott's Legend. "I haven't killed anyone or been killed. But through documentaries you can get a true feeling of fear and despair and the impact of war even if you haven't directly experienced it."
