After working at Square Enix as an art director for 24 years – and having served as art director for Final Fantasy 15 – Yusuke Naora recently announced on Twitter that he has left the company and that his final day was Friday, September 30th. Naora leaves behind an impressive portfolio of work having worked on a number of classic Square Enix titles, such as Chrono Trigger, and most notably, numerous Final Fantasy projects dating back to Final Fantasy 6.
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For those who can’t read Japanese, the folks over at Nova Crystallis have translated Naora’s tweet into English:
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While Naora has left Square Enix, it appears that both parties intend to maintain an ongoing working relationship. According to a follow-up tweet, it appears that Naora will be shifting into an independent role that, not only allows him the freedom to work on his own projects, but will also allow him to continue working with Square Enix on designs and illustrations.
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Naora isn’t the first big name to leave Final Fantasy 15 prior to its release, with the title’s original director Tetsuya Nomura leaving to work on other projects in 2014 and Hajime Tabata shifting into the director’s chair in order to complete the game. Given that the reasons for Final Fantasy 15’s recent delay primarily revolve around debugging, and taking into account that his last day at Square Enix was less than a week ago, it appears that a majority – if not all – of Naora’s work will remain in Final Fantasy 15, so fans need not worry about any last minute shift in art direction.
Based on what we’ve seen so far from the various snippets of gorgeous Final Fantasy 15 footage, it appears that Naora will be leaving the upcoming RPG and Square Enix on a high, and it will be exciting to see what projects he will be working on next.
Final Fantasy XV is scheduled for release on November 29, 2016 for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
Source: Twitter #1, Twitter #2, Twitter #3, Twitter #4 (via GameSpot)
title: “Final Fantasy 15 Art Director Leaves Square Enix” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-10” author: “Leona Cole”
The first employee, Isamu Kamikokuryo, was the art director for Final Fantasy 15, and has worked at Square Enix for an astounding 18 years. This Friday, the storied employee announced that he would be leaving the Final Fantasy 15 developer to pursue freelance art and diction work. He stated that although he feels like he left a part of his heart behind, he simply wanted to move on to drawing new things. The artist had started out as a concept artist for Final Fantasy X in 1999, eventually working on the 5 Final Fantasy titles that followed along with producing art for The 3rd Birthday.
The following day, Square Enix producer Yoshinori Yamagishi also confirmed his resignation from the company. He’d been a producer for both the Star Ocean and Valkyrie Profile series over his 20 year tenure at the company, along with games like the ill-fated Mindjack, Radiata Stories, and more. Yoshinori announced that he is working on a brand new game from a different company, but as of right now the details on this project haven’t been released to the public. The producer made mention that although it was April 1st, he’d leave it up to the fans whether to believe him or not. So far, the departure seems genuine.
It’s not uncommon for workers in Japan to announce job transitions and resignations as March comes to a close, since the new fiscal year for Japan begins on April 1. We wish both of the video game veterans the best of luck in their future endeavors.
Final Fantasy 15 is out now for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
Source: kamikoku 2009 – Twitter, VP_yamagishi – Twitter
