Final Fantasy 15 director Hajime Tabata briefly opened up about his sudden departure from Square Enix in a recent interview. Tabata’s departure in 2018 came as a shock to fans, who were dealt a double blow when three of the four planned DLC for FF15 were canceled in light of his resignation.
Hajime Tabata felt he couldn’t continue beyond Final Fantasy 15
During a recent interview with Japanese site 4Gamer, Tabata was quizzed about his resignation. He kept his response brief and understandably didn’t seem to want to go into too many details, but did reveal that he didn’t see eye to eye with then Square Enix president Yosuke Matsuda on the path forward for game development.
“It’s been many years already, so I don’t remember the details anymore,” Tabata jokingly said, adding that much of his decision to leave revolved around disagreements with Matsuda, who stepped down in March this year after ten years as president and representative director of Square Enix.
“The company would naturally proceed according to the president’s policy, so what I thought we should do, I couldn’t,” Tabata continued. “Under those circumstances, I thought it would be impossible to continue working, so I decided to become independent.”
Tabata went on to start his own company, JP Games.
