Square Enix Is Considering To Remaster Some Old Titles

In the 43rd Annual Shareholders’ Meeting held by Square Enix on June 23, the company revealed its plans to strengthen in-house development, reducing long gaps between game releases and uplifting their quality. This initiative can help the development of major titles and new IPs under the new management team. Additionally, Square Enix confirmed that it is considering remasters of old titles, but no specific details were shared.

The recent Annual Shareholders’ Meeting was attended by 86 shareholders and was held in Tokyo. Since the meeting was conducted in Japanese, the official translations were released only recently, despite the meeting concluding on June 23. In case of any mistranslations in the official PDF, the original verbatim shall prevail. Several questions were asked during the meeting regarding different topics, but we will discuss only a few.

The company chairperson was asked about whether there is a strategy for the release of future major titles since there are long gaps between game releases, and it affects sales, regardless of the title’s significance. The response from Square Enix went as follows:

I will refrain from speaking in specifics, but I will say that we believe that the strengthening of our internal development organization will be of benefit as the difficulty of developing major titles is becoming extremely high, which also has implications for development lead times. We hope that this reinforcement of our organization will promote the development not only of major titles but also new IPs under the new management team.”

The longer gaps in game releases have affected the company’s overall sales, making it an obvious issue for Square Enix. It is unclear how it wishes to strengthen in-house development, whether it be in numbers or by hiring bigger talents. Regardless, we can expect there to be less gap between each release and maybe even some focus on new IPs.

The next question referenced Final Fantasy I-IV Pixel Remaster as being well-received by fans and whether it has made the company plan more remasters. Square Enix confirmed this by simply saying that it is “considering various ideas within company.” While no specific details have been given regarding these ideas, the company wants us to look forward to their impending announcements.

Lastly, Square Enix also confirmed in another answer that it is working on offering IPs across various formats and will share the fans’ views with the development team to offer what the customers want the most. Still, it isn’t clear whether they will make some of their exclusive titles, like Final Fantasy 16, available on other platforms after a certain period or if this statement applies to their future projects.

Square Enix is making some changes to ensure better and more frequent game releases in the future, and it is something we can all look forward to. We have already seen a possible hint toward a Star Ocean 2 Remake on the company’s official website. For now, we can wait for some of these “forthcoming announcements” and hope that this direction turns out to be as good as intended.