Final Fantasy XV Director: A ‘Final Fantasy Disease’ engulfed the development team at Square Enix

"We're not special. Wake up." Those were the words Hajime Tabata spoke to his team when it was clear things weren't going well.

The difficulties surrounding Final Fantasy XV's development can't be underscored enough. Development hell is a pretty good assessment of what's transpired over the past 10 years, and in a recent interview on 4Gamer, Game Director Hajime Tabata described what he called a "Final Fantasy disease" hanging over the game's development team when he took over the job from Tetsuya Nomura.

Tekken producer Katsuhiro Harada, who was taking part in the interview, asked Tabata if there was any backlash once he took the job. He joked:

"Oh yeah, there was…It wasn't only from inside the team, but outside as well. The reason was that if my way of doing it ended up working, there are those whose circumstances will worsen." 

So what exactly is the "Final Fantasy disease"? Tabata said:

"It refers to people within the company who can't imagine anything other than their own view of Final Fantasy…Since the root is a strong self-affirmation, one's own view of Final Fantasy takes more priority than the team's success.

If that view of Final Fantasy isn't fulfilled, then they're convinced that it's bad for Final Fantasy. They think, 'Since Final Fantasy is a special team, then we are also special because we are making it. When the new Final Fantasy comes out, everybody is going to be so into it.' But that's not the reality of the situation, is it?"

Tabata also says that he felt that it was important for the series to modernize itself if it wanted to stay relevant. In 2012, one Tabata's first actions as Game Director was to conduct an analysis of the state of the Final Fantasy brand. The results of which were pretty grim as it determined that Final Fantasy was a "dying IP that had already peaked."

It won't be long before we find out if Tabata and his team were successful, but no matter what, it seems clear that if Final Fantasy XV does falter, it won't be for a lack of trying.

Source: 4Gamer via Gamespot