Tetsuya Nomura has left the Final Fantasy XV project, on which he was serving as Director. Final Fantasy Type-0 and Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Director Hajime Tabata will step up from Co-Director to FFXV's main Director.

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Nomura, notable for his iconic Final Fantasy character designs and leading the Kingdom Hearts series since the original game's release in 2002, will now "focus his full efforts as the director of other highly anticipated titles," Square Enix said, "including Kingdom Hearts III ." It did not specify which other games Nomura is working on.These changes come as part of a "development restructure" within Square Enix. "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,” said Square Enix CEO Yosuke Matsuda."Tetsuya Nomura has mainly worked on the original concept for the [Final Fantasy XV] story and universe in addition to creating the character," Matsuda said. 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.”A demo for Final Fantasy XV -- called Episode Duscae -- will be included in launch copies of Final Fantasy Type-0 when it launches in early 2015.For more on Square Enix's latest games, including Final Fantasy Type-0 and Final Fantasy XV, check out all of our coverage from Tokyo Game Show 2014

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