{"id":246586,"date":"2025-10-04T22:00:34","date_gmt":"2025-10-04T22:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/article.php?article_id=2152737"},"modified":"2025-10-04T22:00:34","modified_gmt":"2025-10-04T22:00:34","slug":"sonic-creator-yuji-naka-leaves-square-enix-after-balan-wonderworld-flop-may-retire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arcader.org\/news\/sonic-creator-yuji-naka-leaves-square-enix-after-balan-wonderworld-flop-may-retire\/","title":{"rendered":"Sonic creator Yuji Naka leaves Square Enix after Balan Wonderworld flop, may retire"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/arcader.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/sonic-creator-yuji-naka-leaves-square-enix-after-balan-wonderworld-flop-may-retire.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Sonic creator Yuji Naka has confirmed his exit from Square Enix, and said he may retire.<\/p>\n<p>In a <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/nakayuji\/status\/1401050454704857088\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">tweet<\/a>, Naka said he left Square Enix at the end of April. Balan Wonderworld, which Naka directed and Square Enix published on multiple platforms in March, flopped at retail. It sold less than 2100 copies in its opening week in Japan, and failed to make the top 40 in the UK physical chart.<\/p>\n<p>On his departure from Square Enix, Naka said: &#8220;I can&#8217;t talk about the reason now, but I hope I can talk about it when the time comes. As for future activities, I&#8217;m 55 years old, so I may retire.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/articles\/2021-06-05-sonic-creator-yuji-naka-leaves-square-enix-after-balan-wonderworld-flop-may-retire\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/articles\/2021-06-05-sonic-creator-yuji-naka-leaves-square-enix-after-balan-wonderworld-flop-may-retire\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sonic creator Yuji Naka has confirmed his exit from Square Enix, and said he may retire. In a tweet, Naka said he left Square Enix at the end of April. Balan Wonderworld, which Naka directed and Square Enix published on multiple platforms in March, flopped at retail. It sold less than 2100 copies in its opening week in Japan, and failed to make the top 40 in the UK physical chart. On his departure from Square Enix, Naka said: &#8220;I can&#8217;t talk about the reason now, but I hope I can talk about it when the time comes. As for future activities, I&#8217;m 55 years old, so I may retire.&#8221; Read more Source<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":246587,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[230],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-246586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-eurogamer"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Sonic creator Yuji Naka leaves Square Enix after Balan Wonderworld flop, may retire | Arcader News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Sonic creator Yuji Naka has confirmed his exit from Square Enix, and said he may retire.In a tweet, Naka said he left Square Enix at the end of April.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" 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