Yuji Naka retirement square enix balan wonderworld

Yuji Naka Confirms Square Enix Departure, Considering Retirement

Yuji Naka made a statement on his Twitter account regarding his resignation from Square Enix and possible retirement. Fans noticed earlier in the week that Naka’s official Facebook showed he no longer worked at the company. We have prepared a full translation of his words below.

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“Due to inquiries from the media and users on Twitter, [I am announcing that] I resigned from Square Enix at the end of April 2021. I cannot tell you why right now, but I hope to be able to tell you when the time comes. As for my future plans, I’m already 55 years old, so retirement is in the cards. Here is a photo that was taken for the Sega Console Historia interview.”

Naka’s resignation from Square Enix comes off the heels of Balan Wonderworld‘s release. The game and its demo received mixed to poor reviews from critics and fans. The title also had its share of controversy when it released with a seizure trigger that needed a day-one patch to rectify.

Although Naka’s Facebook account shows he retired from Square Enix, he is still the CEO of his company Prope, Ltd. Yuji Naka is a creator famous for his 22 years of work at Sega on games like Sonic the Hedgehog, Nights into Dreams, and the Phantasy Star series.

Yuji Naka resigned from Square Enix at the end of April 2021, and he is considering retirement.


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Oni Dino
Oni Dino is a staff writer, Japanese-English translator, localization editor, and podcaster. He has several video game credits and regularly translates columns from Masahiro Sakurai and Shigeru Miyamoto. When not knee-deep in a JRPG and wishing games had more environmental story-telling, he's attending industry events and interviewing creative auteurs to share their stories.