Forspoken’s initial sales were “lackluster” says Square Enix

It appears that Luminous Productions’ RPG, Forspoken, hasn’t had quite the success that publisher Square Enix was hoping for since its January release, according to a recent briefing.

The details:

• Square Enix has released an outline of its February financial results briefing, which provides insight into the overall performance of the company's titles and franchises during the fiscal year. The company revealed in the latter half of the outline that Forspoken's sales have been "lackluster," with other titles releasing in the quarter such as Octopath Traveller II and PARANORMASIGHT being the "ultimate determinant" of whether or not its earnings will take a significant hit.
• Square Enix also revealed that Forspoken received "challenging" reviews, but that positive feedback on the game's parkour and combat systems would lead to "improvement of [its] development capabilities in other games in the future." The game received a mixed reaction, with many criticizing the story and characters and players making memes of the game's "cringe" trailer featuring its protagonist back in August last year. It was also discovered that after someone beat the game prior to its release in the West, the game's credits failed to include the localization and QA teams who worked on the project.
• Shortly after Forspoken was released, Square Enix announced the closure of its developer, Luminous Productions, citing that the studio's merger into its parent company would "enhance the Group's ability to develop HD games." Many were taken aback by the move since, while the game's reception and sales were disappointing, the subsidiary had only been around for five years, with Forspoken being its only product after its founding in 2018 to develop new games using the Final Fantasy XV engine.

Other notable Square Enix news:

• Ichiro Hazama, the producer of Theatrhythm Final Bar Line, hinted that a remaster of the PS1 classic Final Fantasy Tactics could be on the way. During an interview with a Final Fantasy fansite, Hazama stated that the franchise's team is "heavily involved in another project," making getting the characters to appear in the new Theatrhythm title difficult. The remaster was mentioned in the September 2021 GeForce Now leak, leading fans to believe it could be the project in question.
• Final Fantasy XVI will not be released on PC as soon as its exclusivity agreement expires. The title will be locked behind a six-month exclusivity deal with Sony upon its release in June, during which it will only be available on the PlayStation 5, leading fans to believe that it would be instantly available on PC and Xbox Series X/S. Naoki Yoshida, the game's producer, has now put that rumor to rest, stating that getting the game onto the platform is a "completely different story" and that the game "will not come out in half a year.”