Level-5 says Fantasy Life i underwent overhaul in 2024, Keiji Inafune left the company

Level-5 CEO Akihiro Hino shared notable information about the development of Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time in which he explained the game’s delay in 2024 and confirmed that producer Keiji Inafune left the company.

In a blog post, Hino said the project “faced an unexpected challenge” during the middle of last year. Aside from Inafune departing, the game underwent an overhaul after “internal test players had given the game harsh evaluations”. More of Level-5’s studios became involved and there were additions and improvements made, including “open-world exploration and parkour-style actions, restructuring the system’s progression flow, improving the core mechanics, and refining the scenario to be even more emotionally impactful.”

Here’s the update from Hino in full:

In mid-2024, Fantasy Life faced an unexpected challenge. At that time, producer Keiji Inafune left the company, and we had to reassess and restructure the project.

Meanwhile, internal test players had given the game harsh evaluations, making it clear that major revisions were necessary. In response, I decided to take on the role of producer, shifting the core development team from Osaka to our headquarters.

While the Osaka team had been dedicated from the start, the project evolved into a collective effort across our whole company—with developers from Fukuoka, Tokyo and beyond, we were able to significantly strengthen our development capabilities.

This restructuring allowed us to expand the team and create an environment where we could focus on fine-tuning the game’s quality right up until the very end.

From that point onward, we undertook a complete overhaul of the game: adding open-world exploration and parkour-style actions, restructuring the system’s progression flow, improving the core mechanics, and refining the scenario to be even more emotionally impactful.

Thanks to the solid foundation of the game’s core mechanics, these additions didn’t just fit in—they enhanced what was already great about the game, making the experience significantly more enjoyable. The improvements received high praise from our internal testers too, marking a major milestone: Fantasy Life i was finally nearing completion after its long development journey.

For us, watching Tokyo, Osaka, Fukuoka (and Hokkaido, too!) come together as one to push the game’s quality to a higher level was a powerful reminder of the true joy in creating a large-scale game. The day that we can deliver the ultimate Fantasy Life experience to all of you is almost here! Get ready for it!

It is unclear what Inafune’s current status is. He was most well-known for his time at Capcom, and more specifically, the Mega Man series. Inafune founded Comcept after he left Capcom, which became a Level-5 subsidiary in 2017.

Thanks to Level-5 for the explanation above.  Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time now has a final May 21 release date, and new trailers are available here.