After 28 Years Hiromichi Tanaka Leaves Square Enix
Akihiko Matsui has been elected to carry on Tanaka’s work at Square, which includes work Final Fantasy XI and more importantly XIV until version 2.0 is completed.
Final Fantasy XI has been out for ten years now. The occasion was celebrated with a huge event for fans of the only MMO in Squares portfolio called Vanafest 2012, but in the midsts of all this merriment, a grey cloud managed wiggled its way overhead. All of the white mages and chocobos halted their merry questing to pause and watch as it passed sorrowfully along. For all ten of those years, and many years before, Hiromichi Tanaka has served as the games Executive Producer, but announced that he was stepping down and leaving the company for his own reasons. The greatest among those was most likely an unknown serious illness which Tanaka suffers from, according to an interview with Famitsu. On a happier note, Tanaka also vocalized a wish to embark on a new journey as an independent developer; lending his vision to his own projects in the future. What ever new ventures he may explore, Im sure the whole of the gaming community will wish him well as the man who helped bring us classic Square Enix productions such as the original Final Fantasy, as well as the second, third and fourth sequel to the game. He didnt stop there, however, going on to work as a producer on Xenogears, and Chrono Cross. With big shoes to fill, Akihiko Matsui has been elected to carry on Tanakas work at Square, which includes work Final Fantasy XI and more importantly XIV until version 2.0 is completed.