Hironobu Sakaguchi, creator of the iconic Final Fantasy series of RPGs, has said in a recent interview he has no interest in returning to the games.
In an interview with Bloomberg, Sakaguchi said, “I felt if I kept too close of a relationship, then it might actually affect how Square Enix treats Final Fantasy.” He left the company in 2003 and formed his own studio, Mistwalker, in 2004. He’s now become obsessed with Final Fantasy 14, the live-service game.
“On a rare occasion — I want to stress ‘rare occasion’ — sometimes one of the Mistwalker team members will hop on Final Fantasy XIV, and I’ll see a message saying, ‘Hey, the meeting’s started,’” he said.
This is, in part, why he says he’ll remain away from development at Square Enix, although the company is publishing his new studio’s game, Fantasian Neo Dimension. “If I take on the Final Fantasy brand again, I don’t know if I’ll be able to genuinely enjoy Final Fantasy 14 as much.”
Sakaguchi leaving Square Enix was unexpected at the time, as many key developers in the Japanese games industry remain at their companies for decades, such as Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto, the creator of Super Mario Bros. Sakaguchi had transitioned into more of a managerial role at Square Enix, and said “I personally wanted to be more creative — roll up my sleeves, make more games.”
While some may be sad to hear the series’ original creator has no plans on returning to the franchise, it’s sweet he can now sit back and enjoy his legacy as a fan of the games.
In other news, Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy may be coming to Xbox Game Pass according to a recent leaker. It will be weird to see a PlayStation mascot on Xbox, but that’s the future.