Final Fantasy icon to contribute boss design to upcoming Resident Evil game

It’s no secret that Resident Evil: Survival Unit has a Final Fantasy icon at the helm in the form of executive producer Shinji Hashimoto, but we just found out that another Square Enix legend has contributed to the upcoming survival horror game. According to Hashimoto, Yoshitaka Amano is responsible for one of the new game’s bosses, and that has us all the more excited to get playing.

For those who don’t know, Yoshitaka Amano is a key figure in the history of Final Fantasy games, designing artwork for Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy XIII, among others. Given that both Amano and Hashimoto have a long history of collaborating at Square Enix, it’s almost heartwarming to find out that the pair continues to have a working relationship that extends beyond the realms of Final Fantasy. We’d have never anticipated it coming in the form of a boss battle in a Resident Evil mobile game, but we’ll take it.

In our discussion with Hashimoto, the executive producer told us, “I brought in Amano Yoshitaka Sensei, who is a designer from the Final Fantasy series, to create one of our middle bosses.” We didn’t get much more detail than that regarding the collaboration, but honestly, that’s all we need. Knowing Amano’s expressive art style, our expectations are pretty high, but he’s never disappointed us before.

Given that we’re expecting the Resident Evil: Survival Unit release date before the end of 2025, it’s exciting to know that we don’t have all that long to wait before the big reveal of another Yoshitaka Amano design. It’s also a perfectly good excuse to replay Final Fantasy VII – as if we needed one – for a refresher on just why the designer has such a positive reputation across the gaming industry and just how much his work has influenced the medium in the past few decades.

We’ve got plenty of other fascinating insights surrounding Hashimoto’s work on Resident Evil: Survival Unit yet to come with our full interview, so keep an eye out for more. In the meantime, though, you can check out more of our coverage from Gamescom 2025 with our ROG Xbox Ally hands-on preview and Honor of Kings: World preview.

Additional reporting by Sam Comrie.