Load the Game

Final Fantasy Creator to Recieve Lifetime Achievement Award

• Elliot Shaw
• February 10th, 2015

The creator of one of the most groundbreaking and best selling RPGs is set to recieve a lifetime achievement award.

Hironobu Sakaguchi, who created the Final Fantasy series back in 1987, will be honoured with the award at the 15th Annual Game Developer Choice Award in San Francisco.“Over his illustrious and thriving career, Sakaguchi-san has established some of the most successful entertainment franchises of all time, and helped cement the RPG genre in Japan and around the world. But the gaming world owes an even greater debt to Sakaguchi-san and team for making a compelling game narrative as important to game development as its graphics and sound,” said Meggan Scavio, General Manager of all GDC events in a Gamepress press release. “Final Fantasy helped pave the way for game stories that dealt with death, regret and character development in a mature and significant way, and we’re proud to honor Sakaguchi-san as a true leader in the space, and an inspired game developer.”

Sakaguchi was Director of Plaaning and Developement during his time at Square Enix. When he created Final Fantasy, Sakuguchi named it that as the it would be his last attempt to make a successful game, vowing to quit the gaming industry if his project wasn’t a commercial success. The game was a massive success, kicking off a series that has produced 14 official games and many spinoff title and selling over 110 million units worldwide. Sakaguchi also contributed to other successful Sqaure Enix RPGs such as Vagrant Story, Parasite Eve and Kingdom Hearts. Sakuguchi would leave Sqaure Enix in 2004 and went on to found the game company Mistwalker who created Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey.

The GCDAs themselves will be takeing place during the 2015 Game Developer’s Conference. The conference and the game awards will be held in the Moscone Covention Center on the 4th March at 6:30pm. The events will be streamed online and will be open to GDC pass holders.

The awards are to be presented by Grim Fandango creator and Double Fine founder Tim Schafer, who has previously presented the awards in 2007, 2009, 2011 and 2013. The 15th installment of the Final Fantasy series is currently still in development. The English trailer can be viewed below.