Today Yuji Naka, mostly known as the co-creator of Sonic the Hedgehog and former head of Sonic Team, took to Twitter to share his experience while working on Balan Wonderworld for Square Enix.
It’s relevant to mention that this is a one-sided account involving a lawsuit of which the result was not made public, and there may be different points of view to consider.
While we are publishing it as-is, we have reached out to Square Enix for comment, hoping to hear their side of the story. We will update this article accordingly should they respond.
Naka-san, who Joined Square Enix in 2018 after several years working at Prope, an independent developer that he founded after leaving Sega in 2006, first mentioned he was at work on an original action game for the house of Final Fantasy in 2019.
Balan Wonderworld was then announced jointly with Naoto Oshima, who had worked with Naka-san for a long time and is credited alongside him as Sonic’s co-creator.
Apparently, things did not go as planned, as Naka-san alleges that he was removed from his position as director of Balan Wonderworld six months before its release due to disagreements on the handling of the music and purported friction with development studio Azrest (of which Oshima-san is vice-president).
Naka-san also alleges that he was not allowed to interact with the audience via social media, and apologizes for the game having been released unfinished, mentioning that he believes developers should strive to improve their games until their very end.
Below you can read a full Japanese translation by Twitter user Cheesemeister, which I verified as accurate.
Following the release of Balan Wonderworld, Naka-san left Square Enix and has recently started developing small games on his own, with Prope downsizing to a one-person studio, and publishing SHOT2048 for iOS and Android in December 2021.
