We now know through Yuji Naka’s personal twitter that the father of the Sonic the Hedgehog series has joined with RPG kings Square Enix as of January, and will be working in a development capacity. He aims to create “an enjoyable game”, which of course, tells us very little about what he’s doing, since that’s kind of the goal of most games development.

While he is best known for breathing life into that 90’s attitude machine called Sonic, it’s reductionist to reduce his legacy to that. He was also central to the Nights into Dreams games, puzzler Chu Chu Rocket! and the early Phantasy Star titles. His experience with Phantasy Star might be one of his best assets within an RPG focused company like Square Enix.

Naka would first go independent following a falling out during the development of Sonic the Hedgehog 2006, though Sega would keep close contact, publishing some of the titles his studio Prope put out. His most recent credit is Rodea the Sky Soldier on the Wii U and Nintendo 3DS.

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.

— Yuji Naka / 中　裕司 (@nakayuji) January 22, 2018