[22/04] Key staff members leave SE, including Final Fantasy Versus XIII’s system menu director

[C i d]

Some key staff members have departed Square Enix as of last year, according to a recent post on 2ch.The list of staff includes:

Ryuji Ikeda – Dissidia Final Fantasy main programmer
Shouta Shimoda – Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy planning director (RPG elements)/Dissidia FF (AI tuning)
Takeshi Arakawa – Kingdom Hearts texture director/Dissidia FF supervising director/Final Fantasy Versus XIII graphic director (system menu)

What does this mean? Perhaps not too much if we’re only finding out about it now. Takeshi Awakawa was in charge of the system menus for FF Versus XIII, so hopefully not too much was impacted when he left the company. Either way, it’s sad to see these staff members go.There hasn’t and likely won’t be any official statement from Square Enix on the matter.

Source: Novacrystallis​

 

[Ohri-Jin]

This must been the reason of all the mysteriousness and withholding of information about versus...this kinda sucks oh well.....

 

[Shaissa]

This must been the reason of all the mysteriousness and withholding of information about versus...this kinda sucks oh well.....

yes because they knew these people would leave the company for years now.....

Seriously this is just another BS reason for them to try and keep versus in peoples mind, when most have almost all but forgot about it.

 

[Gabe]

-Depressingly awaits a cancellation notice on FFVersusXIII-

By now, if that menu director hasn't done their work on Versus XIII (System menu directing? Like honestly that should be done in the early stages.) then I lost hope in the project. Because when Square Enix first announced FF Versus XIII, they honestly had no idea what was going to go on in the game. They admitted it. They pretty much came up with a loose idea and thought they should make a sexy CGI trailer about it. I'm waiting for them to admit it was the most irresponsible mistake to ever come up with such an idea and reveal it to the public so early.

 

[Ohri-Jin]

Yeah if they knew these guys of the staff would resign or retire why focus on ff13 and ff13-2? Why start full production in the year 2011 when it's like 5 years after the first announcement? Fucksake!

 

[Nocturne]

So, two members who havent really worked on much recently, and a menu designer. Hardly any reason to be alarmed.