Square Enix’s Project Prelude Rune Previously Led By Hideo Baba Appears To Have Been Canceled

Square Enix established Studio Istolia with the goal of working on new IP alongside exiting ones, led by former Tales of series producer Hideo Baba, but since announcing his departure from the company last month it appears that the studio and the RPG project they were working on, Project Prelude Rune, have been scrapped.

Back in January 2017, Square Enix established subsidiary studio, Studio Istolia, led by Hideo Baba who previously worked on the Tales of series for almost two decades at Bandai Namco. The original goal was to gather an abundance of talent from the industry to create new IPs, with the first one being Project Prelude Rune.

However, since Baba’s departure, the official website for Studio Istolia now redirects to the official Square Enix page. The official Twitter and Facebook accounts have also been deleted.

When studio leads leave the company we often see their projects continue or wrap up, as we’ve seen with Final Fantasy XV following the departure of Hajime Tabata, but it appears that it likely won’t be the case with Project Prelude Rune, as everything related to it has been deleted by Square Enix including its official trailer, which you can still check out in our previous report that had it as part of the PlayStation LineUp Tour video that still remains available.

In any case, Project Prelude Rune’s cancelation hasn’t been announced by Square Enix so it isn’t confirmed by any means, but judging by its current state of affairs it’s all but official.

Project Prelude Rune was announced to be in development for PlayStation 4.