There's only enough room for one dragon
Forspoken is one of those games that ol' Nostradamus me just knew wasn't going to make it big from the very second I saw it. I took one look at the visuals, saw recycled assets from Final Fantasy XV for the world, and recycled visual flairs from the tech demo 'Angi's Philosophy' in the character design, (although I would only remember that very recently in a flare of realisation) and mentally checked the thing out as a lazily processed title. Of course that was a very uniformed preliminary assumption of what I was seeing, and there's nothing inherently wrong with reusing old ideas, and even old assets, to create something new and interesting. But something about the way that Forspoken looked, to me at least, just wasn't fitting together. I didn't like the vast-stride canyon jumping, the featureless craggy expanses and especially not the static flick-wrist combat. But first impressions are mere illusions to which we attach far too much significance- I'm sure the game would win me over given time.
And yet, it didn't. Most seemed to get along with the idea of Forspoken at first, even somehow the well-worn idea of an Isekai premise, all until Frey opened her annoying mouth and started to speak. Marketing is an oft scrutinized equation in the formula of game creation, and one often tossed aside as pandering trite; but if there's one example to prove the power of bad marketing- it's Forspoken. Totally misunderstanding the tastes and sensibilities of the audience, misidentifying the strength factors of your game and how best to convey it's tone, and chucking context free cringe-dialogue at the unwary viewer with clueless abandon has to be one of the most self-sabotaging marketing routines the modern industry has seen. Unfortunately, unlike the movie studios who tried to cut the original Blade Runner into an action movie for the trailers, Forspoken doesn't have that same level of quiet genius in the supporting package to win over the misled and ticked off.
Not least of all because the game was being sold for an eye-watering $70; a price tag insisted upon by Square Enix as just payment for the sheer quality of the products they develop and put out... a laughable joke if ever there was one. On the flip-side, and though the comparison seems a little worn by now, I want to present Tango Gamework's Hi-Fi Rush. A thematically irreverent rhythm-accompanied smash action game that was announced and released within the same hour. Only possible thanks the to the combined platform of Bethesda and Microsoft fans, as well as the novelty of that sort of release window; but still an idea that would conceptually be marketing suicide. But by what small metrics we can actually track, digital sales figures, it would appear that in their shared launch week Hi-Fi managed to beat out Forspoken. In revenue. Whilst Hi-Fi Rush was half the price of a traditional premium release. That is just... ouch.
All this is to provide the background for the news that has been flying across all the relevant headlines recently; Luminous Productions, the Square Enix based yet apparently legally distinct development entity, has been announced to be shutting down after a mere month of Forspoken's release. Let me remind you all, that this was only their second full game release after Final Fantasy XV and we still don't know how much of a flop the game actually was, or wasn't; without a rough idea of development costs we can only speculate. I mean, it was certainly a critical flop, but sometimes those games make money regardless. Not enough to justify keeping Luminous around as a studio, however; because those developers are going to be split up and reassigned to the far-away studio of Square Enix. A studio which, as I said, is located in the exact same building that Luminous was. So... not a big change there, I guess. Maybe some cut pay checks.
Still, it's a sad legacy to leave behind. Even Final Fantasy XV had it's problems both before and after the launch of that legendary game. Before there was the whole, you know, fifteen year development period hanging over the entire team. A little bit trying when you've been doing nothing but make the same game for your entire career. After the game came out there was trouble realising the full scope of the potential, whereupon the extent of the game and it's world was supposed to unfurl through the DLC which got cut off mid-way through production. Fans have but rumours about the giant swathes of content they missed out on, but people say that Episode Noctis would have combined some of the scrapped elements from Final Fantasy Versus XIII into the XV timeline! What I wouldn't give to have finally see Stella interact with Noctis- god, we missed out!
And then Forspoken comes along with it's underperformance, itself just the latest in a slew of bad release games which Square Enix has run out of scapegoats to blame. First it was the Deus Ex developers for failing to address the climate and wants of their franchise, which cost them their trilogy; then it was all their western studios at large for just being so weird and hard to market, leading Square to drop them off at uncle Embracer's and never come back. Now we have more failures, and the hammer has to finally land on someone responsible. Sure, Luminous has to fold but it just can't be them. Luminous didn't seize control of every low performing title that Square has put out over the last 4 years. At somepoint you have to turn around to the common denominator: Yosuke Matsuda.
That's right, CEO Matsuda is being tossed out of the corporate window with a golden parachute, leaving all of his cringe inducing promises of metaversal NFT future unfulfilled, stinking up the place. Meaning that the era of his tyrannical rule is over and Square Enix can finally move on under the purview of their new supreme leader: Kiryu Kazuma? (Why do I hear 'Receive You' playing?) Wait, I read that wrong... actually that's Takashi Kiryu, a man who looks like a computer render of the one in the RPG who betrays the group in order to run back to his evil master, only for the dark lord to end up crushing him like a bug because even he can't stand to be around the snivelling little worm of a man. Oh, and he's also got history leading an NFT company in his past.
So it's seems we're on the verge of some historic changes across the Square Enix world, whilst also a historic amount of crap staying exactly the same because of the revolving door of clowns we call the corporate elite. Even with Matsuda out the door and Luminous shuttered, don't think this marks the end of confused titles bouncing off walls with mishot marketing campaigns that kill once decent ideas, all because the powers that be are too busy salivating over the exploitative potential of their WEB3 suger daddies. You expect me to fall about praising the bravery of the company to finally give the slightest amount of change a shot? Or to give this new CEO a chance even knowing exactly what he's all about, where's he going to take Square and how the board of directors probably only brought him on board hoping for a 'play as you earn' tainted future? Yeah, that's a negative to all that. Kiryu can bite and receive me.
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