There has been troubling and terrible news spread throughout the gaming community today, mainly due to the fact that director Hajime Tabata is no longer working on Final Fantasy XV content, and that a majority of the planned DLC has now been canceled.
Variety is reporting that the only DLC that will be released for the game will be the Ardyn DLC. This will chronicle Ardyn's ascension to becoming the chosen one and his descent into turning into the main villain of the game. Originally, his DLC would have been followed by stories also diving into the female mercenary and fan-favorite, Aranea, who popped up infrequently throughout the story both as a foil and as a friend for Noctis and his buddies. There was going to be another DLC that chronicled the very burdensome journey of Lady Lunafreya, the deuteragonist of the game and the supposed love of Noctis' life. And, the final DLC was going to feature Noctis, once more, in an alternate tale of what would have happened in the final showdown at the end.
However, all of those plans are now scrapped, save for the story involving Ardyn.
Director Hajime Tabata has decided to part ways from Square Enix. During a special livestream broadcast on Youtube, Tabata announced that he would be leaving the company and starting his own company in order to work on a new project away from Square Enix. Unlike the fallout between Hideo Kojima and Konami over Metal Gear Solid V, at least Tabata was allowed to make his intentions clear and step away from the game and franchise amicably.
It's not really surprising that Tabata would choose to step away given that Final Fantasy XV is already two years old, and working on more of the DLC heading into 2019 would mean that he would be putting in three years of extra development, in addition to the years he spent working on the game with the team to get it shipped after multiple false starts. Keep in mind that the game was revamped several times following the original announcement back in 2006 when it was known as Versus XIII.
That's a lot of time spent working on a single franchise before and after the game ships. We've seen many top-tier developers step away from a game to pursue other interests, after spending up to a decade working on one franchise. Cliffy B. did the same thing with Gears of War, taking all of his money and starting Boss Key Productions in collaboration with Nexon to make Lawbreakers and Radical Heights.
Tabata will likely stretch his creative legs to find something new to be passionate about within the world of interactive entertainment, much like how Kojima decided to start an all new IP in the form of Death Stranding while working with Sony and Guerrilla Games using the Decima Engine.
Now, this doesn't mean that Square is giving up on Final Fantasy XV, it just means that the content leadership under Tabata will be no more. The company already has plans on re-releasing the Comrades content as a standalone multiplayer experience on December 12th for the PS4 and Xbox One as Final Fantasy XV Multiplayer: Comrades, and will also update the PC version of the game with the new multiplayer content to keep the version parity in check. However, with Hajime Tabata out of Square Enix, it means that the remaining stories involving Luna, Noctis, and Aranea will go untold... for now.
