The latest call to investors of Square Enix offers some clearer perspective on what will be the next few months of the Japanese company.
Square Enix comes from a very profitable 2019 and 2020 thanks to hits like Kingdom Hearts III and Final Fantasy VII Remake, but the company has also had to deal with heavy flops like Marvel’s Avengerswhich has not even managed to recover development costs.
The fiscal year 2021 started with good results thanks to the launch of Outriders, developed by People Can Fly, but as for the next few months everything is still shrouded in mystery. This at least until a few hours ago.
If in fact it was to be excluded that the second part of FF7 and the new Kingdom Hearts will arrive (the series is on hiatus, as announced by Nomura a few months ago), now we know with certainty that in fiscal year 2021which will end on March 31, 2022, Final Fantasy XVI will definitely not be launched.
In the call to investors, as reported by analyst David Gibson, the top management of the company have in fact declared that the efforts of the fiscal year 2021 will focus on a new IP, while for the major series there will be to wait at least until April 2022 with the start of the next fiscal year.
Square Enix’s announcement therefore puts an end to hopes of seeing Final Fantasy XVI in the coming months, and that also rules out the eventual Dragon Quest XII – the game is in development, but has not yet been officially announced.
The statement, however, bodes well for a surprise in the course of 2021 (or at the latest at the beginning of next year), especially if we think of PS5 users.
Square Enix is in fact working on Forspokennew exclusive IP for the Sony console announced last year under the name of Project Athia. It cannot be ruled out that the Japanese giant has just this shot in store for this year’s Christmas season, considering that at the moment we have no other particular clues about other major productions in development.
Square Enix surprised at results by saying titles coming in period ending Mar 2022 will be focused on new IP titles (Outriders, Forspoken etc), that major IPs will come in the following years. So I think that means FF16, DQ12 etc will be April 2022 or later. Surprised #SquareEnix
– David Gibson (@gibbogame) May 13, 2021
