The Sonic franchise has entered a surprising renaissance in the wake of the movie, but its creator Yuji Naka appears to be considering retirement. Yuji Naka was the lead programmer on the original Sonic the Hedgehog, former head of Sonic Team, and the director of the controversial Balan Wonderworld. He has been involved in the development of many legendary games over the course of his career, but it appears that the failure of Balan Wonderworld may be too much for him to recover from.
In a recent Twitter post, Yuji Naka addresses his departure from Square Enix, stating that he cannot discuss the reasons for it at the moment. However, he does hope to talk about it when the time comes, though he does not specify when that time might be. Although Yuji Naka is only 55, he suggests that his next professional decision might be to retire, a decision that has provoked shock, sympathy, and disappointment from many Twitter users.
It is possible that Yuji Naka left Square Enix due to Balan Wonderworld turning out to be a massive sales flop. The platformer spent years in development and was the debut title for Balan Company, a new Square Enix-owned studio, but was met with harsh critical reception and low sales at launch. While the graphics and aesthetic of the game are striking, there was a minor controversy over one of the songs being a little too close to a track from Ghostbusters. However, fans on Twitter appear to be generally supportive of Yuji Naka whether or not they enjoyed Balan Wonderworld, and wish him luck with future endeavors.
Although his last game was so poorly received that the Balan Wonderworld demo was removed from digital storefronts, Yuji Naka remains a respected industry figure. Many have expressed their hopes that he will not retire, or that he will continue working on video games in his retirement. As of writing, Yuji Naka still appears to be working at his indie studio, Prope, which has recently celebrated its 15th anniversary. Prope's main game, Buddy Monster, has been discontinued, and the official Twitter account recently described it as a company only in name, but as of June 1 Yuji Naka still hopes to keep the company alive and release new games.
The possibility of Yuji Naka's retirement is unlikely to affect the Sonic franchise, but it may affect the gamers whose lives he touched. His most famous creation continues to live on across multiple platforms. Yuji Naka has commented on the upcoming Sonic the Hedgehog 2 film and well as many pieces of Sonic merchandise, suggesting that he still has a certain connection to the series. Regardless of Sonic's various failures over the years, that franchise is still better received than Balan Wonderworld.
Balan Wonderworld is available now for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.