Did Sephiroth do this?
Following an extended period of poor business decisions, struggling sales, and a lack of Kingdom Hearts releases (okay, that last one is a joke, but still), Square Enix has announced that, in an effort to wright their sinking ship, they will be both cancelling a number of in-development titles and working to be “more selective and focused” with their resources in the future.
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The Final Fantasy developer unveiled their forward-looking game dev plans by way of an official Notice of Recognition of Extraordinary Losses filed with the Tokyo Stock Exchange on April 30th.
Therein, Square Enix revealed that “in light of the myriad changes underway in the environment surrounding its Group,” the company’s Board of Directors had voted to revise the Group’s approach to the development of high-definition (HD) games [i.e. console games] with the intention of being more selective and focused in the allocation of development resources.”
To this end, the studio further noted that, “as a result of a close examination of the Group’s development pipeline undertaken in keeping with this revised approach, the Company expects to recognize approximately ¥22.1 billion (approx. ~$140 million USD] in content abandonment [i.e. game cancellation] losses on its books for the fiscal year ended March 2024.”
Unfortunately for curious fans, as of writing, Square Enix has not yet provided any details as to which specific titles were axed due to this restructuring.
However, an educated suggests that these cancellations are unlikely to have included either the third entry in the Final Fantasy VII remake series or Kingdom Hearts 4, as not only are both titles extremely far along in their respective development processes, but it would also be reputational suicide for the company to trash such a pair of highly anticipated titles.
As noted above, while Square Enix’s announcement is admittedly eye-brow raising, it ultimately comes as no surprise given the company’s recent financial stumbles.
Per the company’s previously released Q2 2023 financial results, thanks to the underperformance of such titles as Crisis Core -Final Fantasy VII- Reunion, Octopath Traveler II, and Forspoken – the first two failing to make a splash due to being rather niche titles and the last due to being an outright abysmal experience – Square Enix suffered a drop in profits to the tune of roughly ¥20 million JPY.
Further, though not abject failures, both of their most recent Final Fantasy entries, Final Fantasy XVI and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, have reportedly posted middling sales numbers, with the former posting just 3 million sales in its first month in stores and the latter having its performance withheld from the public all together.
At current, Square Enix’s next release, the Dawntrail expansion for Final Fantasy XIV, is set to go live on July 2nd.