They don’t even own Tomb Raider and Deus Ex anymore (pic: Square Enix)
A reader is worried about Square Enix’s current output and fears that the publisher is headed for serious problems in the near future.
It was no surprise reading that Forspoken has been a commercial flop. It was obvious that it had been but to give credit to Square Enix, they didn’t try to pretend otherwise or make any fake promise that there might be a sequel or continuation beyond what was promised. I haven’t bought the game, for obvious reasons, but I did play the demo and found it to be very unimpressive, for most of the reasons GC outlined in their review.
The most worrying thing about Forspoken is not that it turned out bad but that anyone at Square Enix thought it would be good in the first place. Everyone seems to have hated the main characters from the start, the action is poor, and despite it being a PlayStation 5 exclusive that was specifically intended to take special advantage of the console, the graphics are well below average.
Back when Final Fantasy 7 Remake came out in 2020, I thought Square Enix were entering a new golden age but literally everything they’ve done since has been terrible, in terms of the games they release and the decisions they’ve made.
Their first big game after Final Fantasy 7 Remake was Avengers and, well, you know how well that went. Not only was it a flop but so was Guardians Of The Galaxy – which was really good but which Square Enix seemed to make very little effort to market. I wonder, perhaps, because they’d already decided to sell its developer and the one for Avengers/Tomb Raider, getting rid of all their Western developers in one fell swoop.
After that it’s been a laughable collection of medium to low budget Japanese-made games that I imagine most people have never heard of. I made a list and even I didn’t realise they’d put out so much trash recently. Obviously, I haven’t played them all but a quick look on Metacritic will tell you what the world thought of Bravely Default 2, Balan Wonderworld, Babylon’s Fall, Stranger Of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin, The DioField Chronicle, Valkyrie Elysium, and Star Ocean: The Divine Force.
As a fan of Japanese role-players it should please me that Square Enix are at least still making them, but the problem is that because they were all flops and/or bad quality that makes it far less likely that anyone else will make similar games. Square Enix has churned out so much low budget stuff that I doubt even the most eager fan was aware of half of it. I mean, what the hell is The DioField Chronicle and why did they make a new Valkyrie Profile game that was nothing like Valkyrie Profile?
And why, after both NieR:Automata and the remake of the first game were a surprise hit have we still not had another sequel? All these random games and they can’t take advantage of the one success they had?
Rather than NieR 3 their big answer to the problems at the company is… NFT and blockchain tech, even though they know everyone hates it and they’ve seen Ubisoft and others have to abandon their plans. They know this and yet they made a point to say, when they announced a new president, that they wouldn’t be giving up on it.
This seems like just as stupid a mistake as Forspoken and all the rest, and I’m not sure how many more the company can afford. Remember all those rumours of Sony or Microsoft buying them? Thos rumours seemed perfectly believable but they never happened. I think those companies took a look at Square Enix’s books and thought better of it.
I won’t say I told you so when it happens but I think that, quite soon, we are going to hear about some major changes at Square Enix and they’re not going to be ones that anyone is going to like. At this point I just hope they still exist as a company in another couple of years.
By reader Mothman
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A reader is worried about Square Enix’s current output and fears that the publisher is headed for serious problems in the near future.