Final Fantasy XV DLC Cancelled, Hajime Tabata leaves Square Enix

Final Fantasy XV DLC Cancelled, Hajime Tabata leaves Square Enix

Final Fantasy XV DLC Cancelled, Hajime Tabata leaves Square Enix

Hajime Tabata has officially left Square Enix, following a major shake-up of Luminous Productions, a studio that the developer recently formed. Over the past six months, the studio has posted an “extraordinary loss” of 3,733 million yen, which is equivalent to £25 million, a staggering loss over a period of mere months.   

As part of a Final Fantasy XV “Special Stream”, the company revealed Tabata’s retirement and subsequently cancelled the majority of Final Fantasy XV’s planned DLC, cutting down the game’s future DLCs from four “episodes” down to one. Final Fantasy XV’s Ardyn episode will release in March 2019, but the game’s Aranea, Luna and Noctis DLCs have been shelved. 

Luminous’ development efforts have been refocused from DLC towards future games, with Square Enix no doubt being eager to recoup their losses with a future AAA game. Final Fantasy XV was a financial success for Square Enix, selling over 8 million units, though it seems that the studio’s other projects, such as Final Fantasy XV’s full-length prequel movie, made significant contributions to the studio’s losses. 

At this time it is unknown how Luminous’ changed will impact the “Windows Edition” of Final Fantasy XV, as it was set to gain support for Nvidia’s DLSS technology in the near future. These plans may have been axed, though this has not been confirmed by OC3D. 

DSO Gaming claims that they have received independent confirmation from Square Enix that the PC production of Final Fantasy XV has been cancelled, stating that nothing will be added to the game outside of the game’s Ardyn DLC. 

You can join the discussion on Final Fantasy XV’s DLC cancellation on the OC3D Forums.Â