Final Fantasy XV Gets New Trailer, But Also a New Director

Final Fantasy XV has a new trailer (which you can view above) coming out of Tokyo Game Show, but that’s the less important news compared to what else surfaced about the long-awaited game.

Director Tetsuya Nomura has officially left the project after nearly a decade of development and will be replaced by Final Fantasy Type-0 director Hajime Tabata. Nomura will now “focus his full efforts as the director of other highly anticipated titles,” according to Square-Enix. Among these other games, he will be focusing on the much-anticipated Kingdom Hearts III, which was announced during Sony’s E3 press conference last year.

This change in Square’s chain of command stems from a “development restructure” within the company. Square-Enix CEO Yosuke Matsuda says that “Currently, Tabata and the entire development team are working, whole-heartedly, towards completing the production of Final Fantasy XV and ensuring the delivery of the highest quality Final Fantasy title to date,” and that “Tetsuya Nomura has mainly worked on the original concept for the [Final Fantasy XV] story and universe in addition to creating the character.”

Matsuda went on to say that “Hereafter, he will be focusing his efforts on the production of titles that can only be made possible by Nomura, himself, and delivering products that exceed the quality of past titles, starting with another one of his representative projects, Kingdom Hearts III. Square Enix will continue to work on these titles with the best staff formation in an effort to deliver them to everyone as soon as possible and appreciates your continued support.”

Final Fantasy XV was announced back in 2006 as a PlayStation 3 exclusive under the name Final Fantasy Versus XIII before being rebranded as the fifteenth iteration of the series at Sony’s E3 press conference last year. A demo of Final Fantasy XV will be included in copies of Final Fantasy Type-0 when it launches in March.

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