Tetsuya Nomura strongly hints at a potential The World Ends With You 2
The World Ends With You: Final Remix launched this week in Japan, and to celebrate, Nintendo posted an interview with the game's creators on their official blog. The chat included director Tatsuya Kando, music composer Takeharu Ishimoto, and most importantly, creative producer and main character designer Tetsuya Nomura.
While it isn't an enormous secret or anything, it's clear at least from this interview that Nomura has been concentrating his efforts on convincing the higher brass to invest in a theoretical The World Ends With You 2, even going so far as to implying that depending on the sales outcome of this title, he may have a very convincing argument on his hands. Here is his response in full to Nintendo requesting insight on the release (emphasis being our own):
Tetsuya Nomura (Creative Producer and Main Character Designer)
I’ve had a chance to attend various events in different countries during the 11 years following the release of The World Ends with You. On many occasions, I have been interviewed by both the fans and the media, who have told me how much they want me to make a sequel for The World Ends with You. We’ve been looking for an opportunity, and there were a few times we tried to get it started, but time passed without it ever coming to realization.
There are a number of implications behind this Final Remix version. In addition to my intention of making this my last time working with the original game, I think this is the final chance for creating a path to the next step, which I’ve had ideas about since the first launch 11 years ago. Many thanks to everyone for supporting ongoing efforts.
This could also potentially be Nomura signaling that he wants to make sure he remains absolutely key in the future of Square Enix since the future of the Kingdom Hearts series remains up in the air after the release of Kingdom Hearts 3 considering all the work into it.
Not only that, but the publisher may be looking at other talent to carry on the Final Fantasy series considering he was dropped as the director of Final Fantasy XV in favor of Hajime Tabata, though that's purely speculative. Either way, Tetsuya Nomura is clearly passionate about this project, and I'm sure the fans would love to see TWEWY 2.
The World Ends With You: Final Remix is scheduled to be released in North America and Europe on October 12 exclusively for the Nintendo Switch.