Forspoken clearly hasn’t won over players and isn’t selling. Trouble is, it’s not the only Square Enix game in this case, and the publisher is fearing the worst.
After much discussion, Forspoken ended up disappointing many players even before its release. The last few presentations hadn’t convinced anyone, communication around the game was faltering and when the demo came out, that was the last straw. Players quickly abandoned the game, and Square Enix’s open world never really took off. Worse, the few players who took the plunge were quickly disillusioned to see the game was causing major problems, especially on PC. Blame the DRM Denuvo some will say, a cruel lack of finish to others. Anyway, Forspoken built a furnace. The problem is that the current fiscal year isn’t very good at all, and it’s not just because of Forspoken.
Forspoken flop, but that’s all Square Enix games
Square Enix fears the worst for its bottom line, saying its small and mid-sized games haven’t sold as well as hoped. It must also be said that the large cartridges of the publisher have not yet been released. Take advantage of niche games like Valkyrie Elysium, The DioField Chronicle, Tactics Ogre Reborn or Star Ocean: The Divine Force and Harvestella (to name a few) is complicated. Especially since the quality is unfortunately not given for all the games mentioned.
Square Enix was therefore very strong That prophesied
Several of the new small and mid-cap stocks we launched this fiscal year did not perform as expected.
The reviews of That prophesied in particular, the ones we released on January 24, 2023 were very tough. His sales were bad. While new game performance is critical in February and March, we see significant downside risk to our year-to-date earnings.
square enix, balance sheet
Square Enix needs to recover
The publisher will therefore try to shock the audience with these few new releases such as Theatrhythm Final Bar Line, Octopath Traveler 2, Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo. But he will surely have to wait until the long-awaited Final Fantasy 16 comes out to restore his health. Later this year, Square Enix has other big cartridges as well. Mobile games that will certainly find an audience, especially in Japan, but also Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth at the end of the year.