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[Dark_castle]

Is he abducted by aliens? Is the rumour of him being locked up in the basement of SE headquarters true? Is he alive to begin with?

Like, this man with excellent track record in directing and designing some of the best Final Fantasy and have been with the company for decades. Ever since FFXII:IZJS is released, he was only credited to one or two mobile titles, and that was it. Years have passed by, he is nowhere to be seen or heard from.

I missed him and his work dearly dammit.

 

[vareon]

I want to answer janitor but I realized he's not a Konami employee.

 

[kuroneko0509]

wasn't he's the resident SQEX janitor?

 

[Stone Ocean]

A comfy desk job more likely

 

[Philippo]

Those toilets don't clean by itselves boy.

 

[Elios83]

Security job at Konami

 

[_Final_Phoenix_]

Mobile games, according to wiki. His latest 3 games are 1 browser game, 2 ios/android games.

Sorry.

 

[BadWolf]

FFVI Remake.

 

[jiggle]

Ff16

 

[dramatis]

Educated guess: FF12 remaster.

More realistic guess: washing Saga dishes in the basement

 

[Lulubop]

Ff16. Believe.

 

[Spirited]

I hope FF16

 

[KuwabaraTheMan]

Chained up in the dungeon.

Every third day Hashimoto loosens one of his chains, puts a dinner dish just out of his maximum reach, and says "Please be excited".

 

[Lights and Waves]

Working on the FF6 remake for the next Nintendo handheld.

 

[family_guy]

Does he still work there? It's strange since it's rare these days for people to stay at the same place for more than 10 years. Of course if you're close to retirement age then you're probably not going anywhere.

 

[Semantic Continuum]

Early inhouse retirement.
Also must not be confused with his homonym.

 

[Vitanimus]

I want to answer janitor but I realized he's not a Konami employee.

enough

 

[Worldshaker]

One can hope FF16, but who knows.

 

[Nirolak]

Given he was listed as working on a big project ages ago, then the next time we heard he was starting a new project instead, it's pretty self evident he's been through one or more canceled games.

 

[AgeEighty]

There really is no info, only speculation.

Perhaps jschreirer (or bashcraft) or one of our other journalist friends would look into this for a story, but the reality is that Japanese companies keep their internal politics very close to the vest, and there probably is not and will never be any solid information to be had unless a new game by him makes an appearance.

 

[mickagau33]

FFVI Remake.

Don't do this to my heart ;-)

 

[BadWolf]

FF16 is supposedly already in production so it's hopefully that.

 

[Deleted member 20920]

Given he was listed as working on a big project ages ago, then the next time we heard he was starting a new project instead, it's pretty self evident he's been through one or more canceled games.

Yeah. He's probably been unlucky and have been working on projects that were all cancelled. Beyond a few mobile games of course. Even those were from years ago.

Wasn't he also at SE's closed down N.A. branch for a while? Or did I imagined that?

 

[AgeEighty]

Yeah. He's probably been unlucky and have been working on projects that were all cancelled. Beyond a few mobile games of course. Even those were from years ago.

Wasn't he also at SE's closed down N.A. branch for a while?

While he was directing Final Fantasy IX, yes.

 

[Deleted member 20920]

While he was directing Final Fantasy IX, yes.

Oh I thought that was after he was done with XII.

 

[Garlador]

FF16 is supposedly already in production so it's hopefully that.

I have zero doubts FF16 is in production. I think Square Enix just can't really announce it until FF15 actually looks like it'll come out in a reasonable amount of time.

If he's working on FF16, I'd be ecstatic.

 

[Shadow_FFVI]

I can only assume that it's FF XVI he's working on. Maybe even Final Fantasy Tactics 2.
Ramza is making an appearance in the new Dissidia. BELIEVE.

 

[Ombala]

FF16 plz!

 

[RyoonZ]

Working on FFXVI with GAF favorite Motomu Toriyama

 

[The Praiseworthy]

I really wants him to direct FFXVI.

FFIX was the perfect FF game and we need another new one like it.

 

[FFMafia]

enough

I'm thinking he is referencing the thread with the insider info on how konami supposedly delegated high profile people to work as janitors and what not, which is pretty recent news.

 

[Shadow_FFVI]

Working on FFXVI with GAF favorite Motomu Toriyama

As an event planner?
Sure.

 

[Skeff]

He moved from ff16 to oversee ff12HD right? Right? Can we get 12 HD for the love of god!

 

[Hibiki Kurosawa]

He moved from ff16 to oversee ff12HD right? Right? Can we get 12 HD for the love of god!

Both can happen, eh? Why does he need to move away from XVI to oversee XIIHD? They will both happen and Ito will be XVI's director because he neeeeeeeds to be!

 

[ArkhamFantasy]

Hopefully XVI.

 

[Duggie_Brown]

Working on the FF6 remake for the next Nintendo handheld.

That would be sensational.

 

[Irobot82]

According to the book of knowledge his last two games are mobile based. So yeah, that's where he is.

2012 Guardian Cross iOS, Android Original concept
2014 Deadman's Cross iOS, Android, PlayStation Vita Battle design

 

[Koozek]

I have zero doubts FF16 is in production. I think Square Enix just can't really announce it until FF15 actually looks like it'll come out in a reasonable amount of time.

If he's working on FF16, I'd be ecstatic.

It is in production, yeah. Here's what Verendus said about it so far:

From 2013:

Question. With FFXIV and Lightning Returns out relatively soon, will Square have more teams available for more work on SP FF games? I'd really like to see XV and XVI this gen, maybe even XVII if possible. I miss the days of having multiple totally unique FF games in one gen.

Already on the way. The concept of it is also quite unique. It will certainly be something that hasn't been done before in Final Fantasy, if they manage to accomplish it. I'd put it in the back of your mind for now though, as I would personally expect FF15 and KH3 to be out before it.

From 2014:

A lot of the FFs are a mash up in my eyes. Even IX which has the tone you're describing has airships and so on.

XVI will be the opposite of XIII though. It's not futuristic so you might get what you want with that.

 

[Lavitz Slambert]

The man Sakaguchi thinks can save FF, for good reason. I really do hope hes working on XVI, especially since hes been stated to be working on something with deep gameplay and mechanics.

 

[Rad-]

After the release of Final Fantasy XII, Hiroyuki Ito stated he felt the Active Dimension Battle (ADB) system was still rough, much like the Active Time Battle (ATB) system he created for Final Fantasy IV. In the same way he evolved the ATB system in Final Fantasy V, he wishes to evolve the ADB system in a future Final Fantasy game. He added that the next iteration of ADB would both remove unnecessary features and add features that were previously lacking.[14] In September 2012, Hiroyuki Ito stated the optimum form of his battle systems has yet to come due to him being held back by hardware restrictions, such as available RAM and CPU power.

FF16 to have a more evolved FF12 battle system, believe.

 

[dramatis]

According to the book of knowledge his last two games are mobile based. So yeah, that's where he is.

2012 Guardian Cross iOS, Android Original concept
2014 Deadman's Cross iOS, Android, PlayStation Vita Battle design

Deadman's Cross might have been his big budget game. It was originally supposed to be an ambitious project, before the FF14 1.0 trainwreck. They ended up turning it into a mobile game.

 

[jimmypython]

FF16 to have a more evolved FF12 battle system, believe.

GOD GIMME THAT!!!!!



Hopefully he will return in a big way soon, starting with FF12HD.

 

[RobRSG]

Probably working Final Fantasy XV-2: Noctis' Redemption.

Spoiler

/jk Simply don't know.

 

[Sub_Level]

Hiroyuki Ito Final Fantasy VIII - Battle system designer

Haha

 

[Timeaisis]

He's directing Chrono Break with Matsuno, who is working on it for free and just doing it "for the love of the art form". Sakaguchi is back as an EP somehow after selling Mistwalker to Microsoft. Uematsu has reverse aged 20 years and is at his peak and composing the soundtrack with Mitsuda. Kitase is in an advisory role, and Kato, who is somehow also still at Square, is writing the scenario.

Toryima and Nojima have been fired.

 

[Pejo]

Man all this talk of XVI. I guess the way that they handled XV at Gamescom really did damage the public opinion of that game. I don't know why you guys are thinking of XVI already though, it's going to be torture for you in the 8 years it takes to actually come out.

That said, I would love to see Ito and maybe the Gooch as a contractor come in and fix the sad state of what Final Fantasy has become. I don't understand management's angle of having him work on Mobile games when he's got that kind of history.

 

[JeffZero]

Man all this talk of XVI. I guess the way that they handled XV at Gamescom really did damage the public opinion of that game. I don't know why you guys are thinking of XVI already though, it's going to be torture for you in the 8 years it takes to actually come out.

That said, I would love to see Ito and maybe the Gooch as a contractor come in and fix the sad state of what Final Fantasy has become. I don't understand management's angle of having him work on Mobile games when he's got that kind of history.

Ito=FFXVI dream threads have literally existed for years.

 

[Toki767]

He's just making mobile games.

 

[Rymuth]

it's pretty self evident he's been through one or more canceled games.

That's very distressing to hear.

 

[Skeff]

Both can happen, eh? Why does he need to move away from XVI to oversee XIIHD? They will both happen and Ito will be XVI's director because he neeeeeeeds to be!

My optimistic view would be that 16 was temporarily put on hold because progress was so amazingly fast and some people have started to help with 15 to make sure it'll launch on time.