Hajime Tabata opens a studio after leaving Square Enix

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Facts first: Hajime Tabata, director of Final Fantasy XV, left Luminous Productions and the Square Enix group on October 31, 2018, an exit confirmed by the company on November 7. In early December, he announced on Facebook the opening of his own studio, JP GAMES, Inc.

In the message, Tabata wrote: “I started my own company called JP GAMES, Inc. Right now, we are preparing a release for January 2019. And to everyone who has helped me until today, I ask for your continued support.”

His résumé explains the attention. Tabata directed Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII (2007), The 3rd Birthday (2010), Final Fantasy Type-0 (2011), the HD version of Type-0 (2015) and Final Fantasy XV (2016). In March 2018, he took charge of Luminous Productions, a studio created in Tokyo with key members of the Final Fantasy XV team. Eight months later, he was already out.

The exit came along with the cancellation of three of Final Fantasy XV’s four extra content episodes; only Episode Ardyn was kept. Later, Tabata explained that he no longer felt motivated at work and did not want to become a burden to the team. In practice, this means JP Games was born from a personal decision, not from a plan announced in advance.

What came next

JP Games began operating in January 2019, as promised. The studio’s first game was The Pegasus Dream Tour, for iOS and Android, inspired by the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games and released in June 2021. Luminous Productions, meanwhile, released Forspoken on January 24, 2023 and, on May 1 of the same year, was absorbed into Square Enix.

Source: Eurogamer.