One might think that Hironobu Sakaguchi would be done with Final Fantasy XIV at this point. Instead, the director of the very first Final Fantasy (and several of the classic entries) continues to bang through everything FFXIV has to offer while still somehow running his own studio, Mistwalker. His journey so far includes starting his own in-game clothing brand and trying to tackle the MMO’s hardest content, and now he’s trying to revitalize the spirit of the old Squaresoft, somewhat.
Recently, Sakaguchi started up his own Free Company. The name of the Free Company is “Square,” harkening back to the older days when the publisher of Final Fantasy was Square (later Squaresoft) and Enix was the distinguished competition. The Free Company’s logo also recalls the old Square red “A” logo, albeit in Final Fantasy blue.
“It’s not SQUARE ENIX, it’s SQUARE. Finally, the time to belong to SQUARE has come again,” said Sakaguchi in his tweet.
Free Company is formed.
SQUARE", abbreviated "SQ".
It's not SQUARE ENIX, it's SQUARE.Finally, the time to belong to SQUARE has come again.
The logo was based on the red triangle of the "A" in the old SQUARE logo, and was made in the blue color of the FF1 logo.#FF14 pic.twitter.com/BU5FGkoZZE
— 坂口博信 (@auuo) May 29, 2022
If you were hoping to join Sakaguchi in his Free Company, you’d have to be on the Anima server of the Japanese Mana data center. You’d probably also have to be an existing friend of Sakaguchi, as the Free Company has only six active members and is listed as Hardcore. Given that he’s cleared the latest Savage raid tier and is trying to prog through the latest Ultimate, Dragonsong’s Reprise, you’d have a high bar to clear to keep up with the FC. You’d probably also have to speak Japanese, in general.
Sakaguchi has been just plowing through FFXIV. He started playing back in September last year, only to blaze through the rest of the game. Sakaguchi finished Heavensward in two days, Stormblood in six, and Shadowbringers in a mere four days. It’s been an amazing run and it doesn’t look like he’s stopping.
