Today, Square Enix announced that its subsidiary Luminous Productions would officially be merged back into Square Enix from May 1st. The brief press release explains the rationale of the move to be about bolstering the competitiveness of the company’s internal studios, to which Luminous Productions can contribute with its AAA development capabilities and its technical expertise in game engines.
Square Enix is obviously referring to the Luminous Engine, which powers both games released by the studio: Final Fantasy XV and Forspoken. Originally known simply as Square Enix’s Business Division 2, the team responsible for Final Fantasy XV was restructured and rebranded in 2018 as the external company with the current name.
While FFXV received solid acclaim and eventually sold well (over ten million units as of May 2022), Forspoken, the new IP released last month by Luminous Productions, probably won’t fare nearly as well. Square Enix did not share any sales data, though they’ll have to say something when the next earnings report is due, but early figures from the NPD show that the game only ranked #7th in the United States. Granted, the game was only out for a week in the month of January, but then again, that’s where most of the sales usually happen.
I enjoyed playing Forspoken, though the game has several issues, as pointed out in the review.
Forspoken is a fun action game that shines best when you’re taking advantage of the great magic parkour to soar through the fantasy world of Athia and blast enemies with overwhelmingly cool spells. However, its content is underwhelming, its RPG systems are weak, and its visuals are less advanced than advertised. As such, Forspoken’s potential is largely unrealized in its current state. It’s still a decent romp for genre fans to go through, though waiting until it gets a discount or is added to one of the many subscription services is recommended.
For its part, Luminous Productions commented on the news of the merger first by stating that the studio remains focused on improving Forspoken, with a performance update coming soon and the prequel DLC In Tanta We Trust still planned to launch this Summer. The developer also ‘looks forward to continuing to create new entertainment and experiences as part of the Square Enix family’.
In other news, renowned writer Gary Whitta recently revealed that the narrative he conceived for Forspoken was mostly thrown out of the window at the request of Square Enix.
