GameSpot may receive revenue from affiliate and advertising partnerships for sharing this content and from purchases through links.

Final Fantasy creator contemplating retirement

Hironobu Sakaguchi says that he may end his storied career after the completion of Mistwalker's The Last Story for the Wii this year.

234 Comments

In January, Hironobu Sakaguchi's Mistwalker announced its latest role-playing game, The Last Story for the Wii. The game's title may be more literal than first thought, as the Final Fantasy creator has updated his studio's official blog to say that he's got a feeling that it will be his last.

The Last Story might be Sakaguchi's, umm, final fantasy.
The Last Story might be Sakaguchi's, umm, final fantasy.

"This is a title that myself and the development staff are putting 120 percent of our energy into," Sakuguchi said, according to a translation by Andria Sang. "I'm fully pouring everything into this one title, and the feeling of it maybe being my last title is strong."

Sakaguchi's reputation was cemented with the creation of Square's Final Fantasy, the first installment of which arrived for the NES in Japan in 1987. Following Square Enix's purchase of Eidos in April 2009, the publisher said that the Final Fantasy franchise had sold more than 85 million units. That figure has since inflated thanks to the solid performance of Final Fantasy XIII, which had sold some 5.5 million units by May 2010.

However, the famed game designer has experienced less success after breaking away from Square in 2004 to form Mistwalker. The studio's first project, Blue Dragon for the Xbox 360, received a tepid critical reception in the west. Mistwalker's second Xbox 360 project, Lost Odyssey, scored significantly better with critics, while the company's DS RPG Away: Shuffle Dungeon did not.

As for The Last Story, the first trailer for which debuted earlier this month (seen below), the action role-playing game is expected to arrive in Japan later this year.

Got a news tip or want to contact us directly? Email news@gamespot.com

Join the conversation
There are 234 comments about this story