Square Enix Has Failed Its Fans In 2022

Square Enix is one of the most iconic studios out there. They’ve been making games for the last 3 decades and are most famously known for their Final Fantasy franchise.

But, in 2022, Square Enix hasn’t really put anything promising on the table. And we’ve had Babylon’s Fall and Chocobo GP flop drastically.

Some games did all right, such as Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin, Triangle Strategy, and many games. Still, none of them have brought the company any promising success to make up for the failures they’ve suffered in the last few years.

In the midst of all that, Square Enix trademarked “Symbiogenesis.” And fans were speculating that they might finally get a Parasite Eve remake after all these years. However, it turns out that “Symbiogenesis” was some NFT project by the company.

Several other studios in the gaming industry have tried to get into the NFT market in the past. But they had to scrap the projects like Ubisoft had to do with their Ghost Recon Breakpoint.

As far as the gaming community is concerned, NFT projects like this rarely receive any love, and that’s for a good reason. Even Steam, the biggest store for video games on PC, has banned NFT games since last year.

This doesn’t come as a surprise since Square Enix announced in January that it’ll be focusing on blockchain games. Not really sure why it had to go this route when it was already struggling with none of its releases doing exponentially well this year.

Square Enix does have some games coming out later this year, such as Tactics Ogre: Reborn, Harvestella, and Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion. These games might do well since Tactics Ogre: Reborn and Crisis Core are both remakes, and their original games did well in their time.

Harvestella is set to release on November 4 and is a farming simulator and exploration game. Out of all the upcoming games in 2022, none of these appear to be very well-sought titles.

The company has been riding on the back of its Final Fantasy franchise. Square Enix released a trailer for Final Fantasy XVI, which is set to release in 2023. But, other than this, the company has put nothing forward to look up to in the upcoming year except Forspoken. But it will likely suffer the same fate.

Part of Square Enix’s failure is because it was obsessed with the Epic Games Store in recent years. The EGS has a much smaller audience than Steam and has suffered several losses in its business in the last couple of years.

However, Square Enix appears to have learned from its mistakes and is focusing more on Steam, as it should. But one thing still remains in question, and that is their marketing strategy.

You’d probably never find out about many of their “good” games unless you’re actively following Square Enix or any related platforms. They should focus on better marketing for their products like they’ve done for the Final Fantasy and the Octopath Traveler franchises.

Other than marketing, one more thing that drastically limits their audience is their focus on Nintendo Switch games. Switch first came out in 2017 and was a great hand-held console back then. But today, it is holding modern games back.

Being a hand-held console, Switch has its hardware limits, and new titles can only push it so far. With Switch nearing its limit, it is highly doubtful that anyone would buy it just to play Square Enix games.

In the end, Square Enix released a ton of games in 2022. But none of those come close to being a stellar success. And it’s not just this year. The company has been on a decline for the past few years with next to nothing on its name.

But this could change with the Crisis Core and Tactics Ogre remakes that are set to release before the end of this year. Or, it might not, and Square Enix will once again have to rely on a Final Fantasy game to keep them up and running, with Final Fantasy XVI coming in 2023.