MCV/DEVELOP News, events, research and jobs from the games industry
The organisers of the Game Developers Choice Awards have revealed that Japanese development legend Hironobu Sakaguchi will receive this year’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
Sakaguchi is best known as the creator of the Final Fantasy series, and is currently founder and president of Mistwalker Corporation, the studio behind the Blue Dragon franchise and Wii RPG The Last Story.
During his time at Square Enix, he also helped produce popular titles such as Vagrant Story, Parasite Eve and Kingdom Hearts, Gamasutra notes.
"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," said GDC general manager Meggan Scavio.
"But the gaming world owes an ever greater debt to Sakaguchi-san and team for making a compelling game narrative as important to game development as its graphics and sound. 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 honour Sakaguchi-san as a true leader in the space, and an inspired game developer."
Sakaguchi will collect his prize during the 2015 Game Developers Choice Awards in San Francisco on Wednesday, March 4th. Other big winners this year include David Braben and Brenda Romero.
