Source
Source
Source
Source
That's enough for me to believe that Tabata cares about the story. Heck, he didn't make the game a fully open world so it doesn't mess with pacing and progress of the story.
Of course the base that allowed for multiple sequels is gone because they changed it in favor of making it a one game, its only natural that few things are going to be cut, changed, or replaced (e.g. Stella & FNC) but that doesn't mean that all elements from Versus were removed. We still have the war, the roadtrip, characters, main scenario .. etc that much is still very much there. Correct me if I am wrong, even Nomura changed a lot of stuff back in Versus days.
The thing is, Versus was never a real game, it was a mere concept and everything we've seen wasn't even in game. When the title became XV, Versus was only 25% done, we don't know what happens post Insomnia, so we can't say for sure what stayed in the story and what was scrapped, we can only take the dev word for it.
Of course the intro is light as we don't have that Insomnia invasion scene anymore, but that doesn't automatically mean the game is going to be all rainbow and sunshine with no story what so ever. In one of the ATRs Tabata said that the game will have its emotional and serious moments. Whether he will deliver or not that part remains unknown, we are promised a 50 hour story content and judging the entire story based the first 10 minutes of the game is certainly not fair. The beginning of XIII was solid but it didn't help much when the story turned out to be shit, XV deserves a chance to prove itself before we burry it to the ground saying its going to be shit. Also, its very important to judge XV as it is and not for what Versus could have been as a lot of its appeal came from glorified fan expectations.
I can think of so many anime/movies/games that starts off slow but becomes great as the story progresses, its all about the build-up after all and I am willing to give XV the benefit of the doubt. I am not saying you can't be cautious or even skeptical, I understand why you would be (I am too sometimes), but I don't think Tabata would just straight up lie about something he has been emphasizing on as far as I remember.