We interviewed Hironori Okayama and Hiroyuki Ito at PAX East about Square Enix Japan’s upcoming games FLAME VS BLAZE and KINGDOM HEARTS Union χ[Cross].

Square Enix has always had a strong foot in the mobile market, bringing some of their most beloved series right into your pocket. At PAX East 2017, we had the chance for an exclusive interview two of Square Enix Japan’s most experienced developers about two of their upcoming mobile titles.

Hironori Okayama is the Producer of FLAME VS BLAZE, an upcoming mobile MOBA coming to the U.S. later this year. Team up in fast-paced three-on-three PvP battles as you fight to destroy the other team’s reactor before they destroy yours. The game features colorful characters and animations, providing a unique take on multiple online battle arena games on mobile devices.

We also talked with Hiroyuki Ito, co-director of both KINGDOM HEARTS Unchained χ and the upcoming relaunch of the title, KINGDOM HEARTS Union χ[Cross]. This new version of the game includes a number of large updates, including multiplayer support, and will be coming to all users for free later this year.

Over the hour-long interview (which was conducted through a translator), we were able to learn more about the relatively unknown FLAME VS BLAZE, what changes we can expect between Kingdom Hearts Unchained χ and Union χ[Cross], and about both developers’ thoughts on mobile game development.

App Trigger: How did you come up with the concept of FLAME VS BLAZE? Did you play any other MOBAs that inspired you to develop this style of game?

Hironori Okayama: A little bit of a long answer but…

First of all, just a little bit of a background for Japan: the MOBA game genre isn’t really that popular there. There are people who are really into MOBA games such as Vainglory and League of Legends. Just overall, Japan doesn’t have a big player base for MOBAs. But the FLAME VS BLAZE team actually is a group of developers who are really into the MOBA genre.

So the concept design behind FLAME VS BLAZE is to find a way to allow people who haven’t really played MOBAs or who may not be interested in MOBAs get into the MOBA genre. So we did a lot of research with other MOBA games to try to take the essence of MOBA, and keep that in there, and maybe take out some things that might be difficult for people who have never played MOBAs to understand, and use that process in making the game.

Have you seen the trailer that we released the other day?

AT: Yes, it looked interesting!

Okayama: So that trailer is basically the recipe for the game, if you just watch it and hear what’s being said, that’s the way that the gameplay works and how the characters are.

Actually for FLAME VS BLAZE, we were trying to make it for Japan because we had this idea to get Japanese people to like MOBA games. But actually in the end, when we came here [to the U.S.] to show it to people at Apple and Google, the people here were way more interested and very passionate about it.

And so while we originally were only planning to make it for Japan, since we had that kind of reception when we brought it over here, we decided to expand the market and where we were gonna go with it so that more people could play it.