Final Fantasy XV game director Hajime Tabata has left the company, Square Enix announced today. The revelation came during a livestreamed Final Fantasy presentation, which outlined the company's plans for XV's forthcoming DLC packs and the newly standalone nature of XV's multiplayer mode.
The news on the DLC front is surprising: three of the four announced DLC packs scheduled for release in 2019 have been canceled. Episodes concerned with characters Aranea, Lunafreye and Noctis have all been ditched, though the Ardyn pack – which focuses on the game's main antagonist – will still come in March 2019. "The Final Fantasy XV development team wish to thank all players who have taken this journey with them and will celebrate the experience with fans to the end," the publisher said in a statement.
On the topic of why these DLC packs were canceled, global brand director Akio Ofuji says the team assigned to developing them have been moved on to another "AAA title".
"A new company called Luminous Productions was formed, centered around the staff who had previously been developing the main game as part of BD2, and they have continued to work on the project since," he said during the stream. "The main purpose of establishing Luminous Productions was to create a studio that can deliver a completely new AAA title to the global market. The desire is to deliver this new AAA experience to everyone even a day [sic] sooner, and due to this directional change, the company decided to focus our resources on the development of this AAA title."
While the previously announced modding tools and Steam Workshop support have already been added, it's unclear whether the level editor is also forthcoming.
Meanwhile, it was announced that Final Fantasy XV's multiplayer component Comrades will get standalone editions on Xbox One and PS4, though no specific mention was made of PC. Later, it was announced that Final Fantasy XIV will get a special event designed for XV owners, which features Noctis in a quest titled 'Adventurer From Another World'. More info on that is here, but you can see the trailer for Episode Ardyn below.