Square Enix admits that Forspoken sales were lacking

Company sets its hopes in blockchain games

Square Enix has called the reviews of Forspoken, which launched earlier this year, “challenging” and admitted that the game’s “sales have been lackluster” in a financial briefing held in February, of which it has now released an outline (thanks, RPGSite).

On the bright side, the company notes that “the game has also received positive feedback on its action features, including its parkour and combat capabilities, so it has yielded results that will lead to improvement of our development capabilities of other games in the future.” That’s pretty much what our Forspoken review came to as a conclusion as well.

Square Enix announced soon after the game’s release that it would merge developer Luminous Productions back into the parent company and also revealed the intention of replacing President Yosuke Matsuda with Takashi Kiryu.

Positive releases like Octopath Traveler 2 have somewhat helped brighten the bleak picture drawn in regards to the financial forecast for the near future, but it’s clear that Forspoken’s lack of success was hard on the company.

If anyone is expecting any strategic changes regarding Square Enix’ infatuation with blockchain and NFT tech due to this development, then the briefing ends on a disappointing note with the following exchange from the Q&A section:

Q: While I think it is fair to expect growth in FY2024/3 in part because you plan to release multiple major titles, I also fear that will create a YoY hurdle you will be unable to surmount in FY2025/3. What kind of initiatives do you have in mind to ensure sustainable growth?

A: Major title launches will not be concentrated solely in FY2024/3. We have organized our pipeline so that we will have a good spread of new releases in FY2025/3 and beyond as well. We also hope that you will look forward to the blockchain games we plan to launch in FY2024/3 and thereafter.

Looking for sustainable growth from blockchain games, which so far have mostly crashed and burned upon arrival, certainly is a bold move. We’ll have to wait and see if or how this approach may change once the next annual shareholder meeting has confirmed the leadership change at Square Enix.