Square Enix's woes

 Is Square Enixed?

There is a special space in the industry for creatives of the pedigree and talent of one Square Enix. A company that has tasted what it has been like to be at the very edge of bankruptcy, and reinvented itself from international recognition towards international acclaim time and time again, they've been something of the kings of the comeback over the years. For this reason alone I refuse to take seriously the doomsooths spreading misgivings about the future prospects of one of gaming's greats, however that does not mean I don't deny how these past few years have been far from their best in terms of the games that they make- highlighting what some would call a requirement for immediate seismic change, and what others (myself among them) might instead define as simple a 'bad run of luck'. Wherever you fall on the solution, it's obvious that no one in the Square Enix market wants to have a year like this one again.

Now typically a Square Enix year is full of flashy hits and forgettable misses. Some years you'll be hit with an unfortunate spate of titles like Left Alive, but then you'll round things out with a Final Fantasy smash hit or two and no more is ever said about the 'mishaps'. (But you forgot about 'Left Alive', didn't you?) Or maybe a bit of the ol' Quiet Man will stink up your store-front. But stick that on the same self as Octopath Traveller and you'd never even consider that those games might have the same publisher- but they did, in the same year! There's this bizarre array of quality variance when it comes to the Square Enix slate, and that comes down to their very unique approach to 'producing' wherein, according to recent reports, they sic a single producer on a project and leave it as their own "personal fiefdom" to run in whatever direction they so desire.

I think the best way to really compare what is meant by that would be to take a look at some of Square's hit franchises. Of course, everyone knows that Final Fantasy games are utterly narrative distinct with each entry, and thus warrant new development studios and directors from game to game- but did you know the same was also true per games in a series? Final Fantasy Rebirth is not actually being directed by Tetsuya Nomura, although that madman will obviously be watching over the fruits of his twisted obsession as they blossom and flourish from the producer role, because he's mad. But zoom in even further to Final Fantasy 15 and you'll see a similar example- wherein the various big news DLC expansions that game got were all fronted by different directors from the main game. The results is each DLC felt self contained, explored different themes and boasted vastly different ideas about what counts as 'subtle storytelling'. (Shout out to the 'Prompto DLC' with the ever brilliant mission objective: 'Reconnect with your inner child.' Nice.)

On the flipside, this distinction between project leads can mean that in a bad year when things don't quite go the way you want, we can get such a variance in project quality you'll end up wondering what the hell happened to everyone in the studio to get this bad. We'll get a year that hits us with Forspoken and it's 4-second long DLC, whilst also marking the death of it's Live Service 'Too big to fail' game 'Avengers'. (Which I recently bought at a steal of a discount. Cause I'm stupid, I guess? I'll make a blog out it at some point, I guess...) And also Babylon's Fall happens. Another Live Service game that boasted half a day with 1 active PC player about a month after launch. Technically Babylon's Fall happened last march, but a failure of that colossal magnitude does not just get forgotten about over the space of one year. In many ways, we're all still falling.

Now the counter-balance of the year was very much supposed to be the brand new Final Fantasy game, XVI, but... things apparently didn't quite go to Square Enix's plan there either. Whilst the newest Final Fantasy game was well received critically, the game only did well on sales- it wasn't a smash mega hit... and apparently Square Enix was shooting for a smash mega hit... on a game they released on a single console... kinda feel like they shot themselves in the foot there. Also, there's been some discourse about how the game wasn't particularly popular in Japan, dropping from the charts very quickly, which some have attributed to the European setting. Personally, I'm not really a fan of the medieval Europe setting, I rather though Final Fantasy had outgrown that, but I don't think that alone is a sign of a great sin on the franchise's part. Final Fantasy has always been a more popular franchise in the West, whilst the East inexplicably cling to, >blergh< Dragon Quest.

As a result Square aren't looking too hot this year, with more high budget failures than successes it's kind of looking like 2023 might end up being a year of steady goings for a company that is aiming to grow every year- which some pundits posit could be the prelude to terrible consequences for Square as a company. Some have even go so far as to say the game's industry might lose one of their juggernauts if things don't work themselves out soon. Insiders are saying that the 'no oversight rule' is permitting giant failures. Square are losing ground to Sega and Capcom, both of whom seem to be skyrocketing towards bigger successes all the time. And what do I think of all this? Personally, this is a bad couple of years for Square, but I have a hunch they're going to work it out.

For one, without laying all the blame under the excuse matt, I think it's worth pointing out that all of these problem games held important development years within the Pandemic, which undoubtedly left it's mark on things. Now to be fair there are plenty of games that were developed through the pandemic, and one of them might just game of the decade so far. But remember that Square games are developed on a figurative island, which is an environment that respects the professional but does allow problems to develop and fester without direct oversight. Also, the slow down in schedule has hurt Square's ability to predict the market, developing two live service games for an industry that has become sick of them is just poor timing. I feel for them in that regard.

Losing Square Enix is such a ludicrous proposition I don't even want to entertain it, and although their leader might every now and then dribble out some nonsense about 'innovation' that he clearly knows nothing about, and sometimes they sell of half of their most valuable assets rather than work to make them valuable again- I think it's genuine fear mongering to start sizing them up for coffins and tombstones already. Next year has them dropping a new Final Fantasy 7 game, a new FF14 expansion, probably some news on Kingdom Hearts 4 and a likely a PC release for FF16. This has been one of gamings best years for everyone that isn't them, and that sucks, but next year is sizing up to be one of their safest. Square isn't going anywhere anytime soon, mark my words.