HomeNewsBalan Wonderworld
Balan Wonderworld and Sonic lead Yuji Naka says Square Enix “do not care about games"“Or game fans”
“Or game fans”
BALAN WONDERWORLD | A Hero Or Two | Available NowWatch on YouTube
BALAN WONDERWORLD | A Hero Or Two | Available Now
“Six months before the launch of #BalanWonderworld, a work order was issued removing me as director, so I filed a lawsuit in court against Square Enix,” says Naka’s first tweet. Now that the court case is over, he’s free to discuss it, he alleges.
“I am truly sorry for the customers who bought my unfinished #BalanWonderworld,” starts another tweet. Naka goes on to offer an example of how the original Sonic The Hedgehog continued to be tweaked until shortly before release, leading in Naka’s view to a better game. Another tweet begins with Naka stating that “Game creators are supposed to improve their games until the very last minute, and to prevent them from doing so is still not right.”
“It is a real shame that we released the unfinished work #BalanWonderworld to the world. I wanted to release it to the world as an action game in a proper form considering various things. I think Square Enix and Arzest are companies that do not care about games and game fans,” thefinal tweet says.
Video game development is a team sport, and all we have here is Yuji Naka’s side of the story of what happened around the release of Balan Wonderworld and Naka’s apparent removal from the project. It remains remarkable to see a developer being so public in criticising their former employer, however, and to go so far as to say they are sorry for customers who bought their game. I’ve reached out to Square Enix for comment and will update this story should I hear back.
