Square Enix hires Sonic mastermind Yuji Naka

Huge news from legendary game designer Yuji Naka:

Just a quick note to let you know, I joined SQUARE ENIX in January.
I’m joining game development as before, and strive to develop games at SQUARE ENIX.
I aim to develop an enjoyable game, please look forward to it.
Source: Twitter

Yuji Naka is an incredibly important video game designer, being the head of the legendary Sonic Team studio during the ’90s, and lead programmer of the original Sonic the Hedgehog game series.

After leaving Sega in 2006, he started Prope, an independent studio. Prope has developed numerous mobile games, and although they a lot of them feel like proof-of-concepts, I have a soft spot for Prope Discover, which played like an expanded version of Epic Citadel.

While it’s too early to know what he will be making at Square Enix, it certainly is an exciting development. Square Enix (separately and together) were responsible for some of the most important RPGs of all time, and continue to make world-class games for console and mobile. Yuji Naka’s Sonic games are all on mobile, Square Enix’s classic RPGs are on mobile, and Yuji Naka’s last development studio was focused on mobile gaming, I’d say there’s a good chance whatever they design together will be coming to mobile.