Forspoken is a Sales Flop, Square Enix Cites "Challenging" Critical Reaction, Dev Studio Being Disbanded

[T0@st]

According to a Square Enix Outline of Results Briefing from February 2023, Forspoken sales numbers are lower than anticipated. Square Enix company president Yosuke Matsuda stated: "Reviews of "FORSPOKEN," which we released on January 24, 2023, have been challenging. However, the game has also received positive feedback on its action features, including its parkour and combat capabilities, so it has yielded results that will lead to improvement of our development capabilities of other games in the future. That said, its sales have been lackluster, and while the performance of new titles with February and March release dates will be the ultimate determinant, we see considerable downside risk to our FY2023/3 earnings."



Luminous Productions, the developer of Forspoken, is disbanding and being merged into the larger Square Enix development group. Yosuke Matsuda, president and representative director of Square Enix, is due to step down from his role later in 2023. His replacement has already been lined up. Takashi Kiryu, the general manager for the corporate planning division at Square Enix Holdings, has been named as the eventual successor. Square Enix is restructuring its management team, in reaction to fast changing economic circumstances in the video game industry.

Forspoken follows the journey of Frey, a young New Yorker transported to the beautiful and cruel land of Athia. In search of a way home, Frey must use her newfound magical abilities to traverse sprawling landscapes and battle monstrous creatures. Available now as a timed exclusive for Playstation 5 and PC/Steam platforms.

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[blacksea76]

""Square Enix company president Yosuke Matsuda stated: "Reviews of "FORSPOKEN," which we released on January 24, 2023, have been challenging. However, the game has also received positive feedback on its action features, including its parkour and combat capabilities, so it has yielded results that will lead to improvement of our development capabilities of other games in the future.""

Should I take from this that they had no beta testers to point out these obvious issues? Is that even acceptable with a company that makes videogames? No focus groups to discuss problems, just dish something out for the sake of it?

 

[Crackong]

Well we all know why

Forspoken follows the journey of Frey, a looks bad, talks shit, bad manner, acts weird young New Yorker transported to the beautiful and cruel land of Athia where everyone are brain dead stupid. In search of a way home, Frey must use her newfound magical abilities to move shit with mind traverse sprawling landscapes and battle monstrous creatures.

 

[the54thvoid]

Not sure the character can look bad?

I saw the trailer and thought it looked like a magic starburst wand had painted every bloody effect. Way too much pzazzle and fluff. That alone made me say no.

 

[spnidel]

Should I take from this that they had no beta testers to point out these obvious issues? Is that even acceptable with a company that makes videogames? No focus groups to discuss problems, just dish something out for the sake of it?

less to do with focus groups and more with shitty direction

 

[GamerGuy]

Well, should the game be on sale for at least 80% off in the coming months, I might just snag it. Right now, having too much fun playing Dead Space Remake....and COD MWII.

 

[ymdhis]

Square Enix tends to call all games a flop, even the ones which are critically acclaimed and selling well. I wonder how many units the game sold in reality, especially compared to other games they consider a success.

 

[dgianstefani]

Add to this terrible PC performance and... well... this isn't surprising.

 

[nguyen]

Dead game tell no tales

 

[sephiroth117]

The game is far from being horrible, however I do think it had a phenomenal dev and marketing budget. Way too much flaws tho and some are pretty bad.

The luminous team, be it FFXV or Forspoken, I really did not like their games, their artistic approach, it was best to disband the studio indeed.

Too many issues with Square Enix:

• A bet on NFT...
• A bet on live-service games, babylon falls being one, abhorrent, game
• Lack of investments in A/AA games like Valkyria, Star Ocean, lack of new ideas, those IP are stagnating, dull, with a lack of proper new ideas DESPITE being the perfect field to test them (you don't experiment on a 60M$ budget game)
  • In the current economical context, most people won't bother paying 40+ EUR on dull games. Make better games, with more budget rather than investing in markets that are failing/saturated
• A desperate attempt to make what they don't know: Western-oriented RPG like FFXV or Forspoken. make what YOU do best rather than trying to fit a new yorker and make her cuss each 3 second (seriously, they learnt about New York with tv series only or what)..or a K-pop band in FFXV.

 

[maxfly]

I received it free with my video card. I played it for a couple of hours. I really wanted to like it but man it was boring. I may revisit this later on...but not likely.

 

[sepheronx]

Pretty slow on the news since I posted this on here like what, a week or two ago?

Anyway, flopspoken has killed a studio. Not surprising.

Instead of flopspoken or forspoken should be renamed to Foreclosure.

 

[Denver]

Square Enix tends to call all games a flop, even the ones which are critically acclaimed and selling well. I wonder how many units the game sold in reality, especially compared to other games they consider a success.

I found some information... it seems very little for a company like square enix:

Quick stats as of today
266 active players (72 min ago)
271 active players (24h peak)
57.2% positive reviews
$9,4m gross revenue
168k units sold
22.2 hours avg play time
16.4 hours median play time

 

[Ferrum Master]

Back to polishing FFVII part two, at least there you cannot f* up with the plot being like a Netflix bag of puke content wise. Although Netflix could even screw FF7, as they would make it "more appealing" to masses lol.

Completely agree that Square has to hold on what they do best - making Japanese games, not knock offs of things they never will understand, it ain't needed. Glad they sold off Eidos Montreal thus not compromising Deus Ex Sequel with some "fresh ideas".

 

[Deleted member 177333]

Ya not surprising at all - it just looked like a trashfire when I checked out the initial info around launch so I avoided it.

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

Is there a thing as too much action combat? If so, this is a good example. Definitely not for the casual player, pace seems too fast in the video. Oh and the magically sentient bracelet is likely pretty lame, its not chatGPT level AI, predetermined triggers spew canned responses maybe?

Dishonored 2 had a female protagonist, it didnt go over well either.

 

[AusWolf]

I saw the trailer and thought it looked like a magic starburst wand had painted every bloody effect. Way too much pzazzle and fluff. That alone made me say no.

That, plus the far too frequent effing-jiffing for me. I guess it's exciting if you're 6 and have just discovered the existence of the S-word. Otherwise, it's kind of cringy and off-putting.

Not to mention that the trailers present the main character like who she is was important, but all we know is that she's from New York, and loves cats, like it was some kind of unique thing.

 

[Lew Zealand]

The best thing they did for this game was release the playable demo. Uninvolving with last-gen visuals. If I received the whole game for free, I wouldn't play it as so many other better games are available out there.

 

[TechLurker]

The game is far from being horrible, however I do think it had a phenomenal dev and marketing budget. Way too much flaws tho and some are pretty bad.

The luminous team, be it FFXV or Forspoken, I really did not like their games, their artistic approach, it was best to disband the studio indeed.

Too many issues with Square Enix:

• A bet on NFT...
• A bet on live-service games, babylon falls being one, abhorrent, game
• Lack of investments in A/AA games like Valkyria, Star Ocean, lack of new ideas, those IP are stagnating, dull, with a lack of proper new ideas DESPITE being the perfect field to test them (you don't experiment on a 60M$ budget game)
  • In the current economical context, most people won't bother paying 40+ EUR on dull games. Make better games, with more budget rather than investing in markets that are failing/saturated
• A desperate attempt to make what they don't know: Western-oriented RPG like FFXV or Forspoken. make what YOU do best rather than trying to fit a new yorker and make her cuss each 3 second (seriously, they learnt about New York with tv series only or what)..or a K-pop band in FFXV.

I'm more surprised that with nostalgia being strong, there aren't more games from Square's catalogue that aren't capitalized on more, even if they do have to go "back to basics" and do a straightforward Japanese-style RPG or game, or a simple HD edition, or even a full remake.

More Valkyrie Profile games in the vein of Silmeria and Lenneth, more Star Ocean games in a massive world akin to Till the End of Time, a new scrolling shooter based on Einhander, a new Chrono game, a proper FM3-5 style Front Mission game, and more SaGa games. Heck, I'll even pay for a simple HD Remaster of the old Threads of Fate game.

 

[Chry]

Looks like the game mixes modern things with ancient/fantasy setting in a very distasteful, immersion breaking way. Definitely not something I'd play, even though normally I consider playing games of this genre.

 

[Cowboystrekk]

Well we all know why

Haha, you made my day

 

[dozenfury]

That might be a record, a game doing so badly that it kills off the studio only 45 days after release. More importantly, what about support and patches now for the people that made the mistake of buying the game when the devs that made it are all gone? We know how that goes, every support ticket opened for bugs being closed with an automated just reboot or reinstall the game/video drivers message...

 

[crazyeyesreaper]

I'm more surprised that with nostalgia being strong, there aren't more games from Square's catalogue that aren't capitalized on more, even if they do have to go "back to basics" and do a straightforward Japanese-style RPG or game, or a simple HD edition, or even a full remake.

More Valkyrie Profile games in the vein of Silmeria and Lenneth, more Star Ocean games in a massive world akin to Till the End of Time, a new scrolling shooter based on Einhander, a new Chrono game, a proper FM3-5 style Front Mission game, and more SaGa games. Heck, I'll even pay for a simple HD Remaster of the old Threads of Fate game.

Pretty sure they also hold Ogre Battle rights so where is the rebirth of Ogre Battle March of the black queen and Ogre Battle 64 Person of lordly caliber. Both games are absolutely amazing the story is solid, unique characters based on path and "chaos frame" A remake of both would mostly just need updated graphics and improvements to the AI / units to increase overall challenge. Even the option of DLC to flesh out other story arcs in a tactical RPG that I have only seen one other game follow the same premise (Symphony of War which is an Indie title) add in some of the unique features from that title and you have a truly replayable game but instead they do remake re-releases of games they already re-released multiple times. I think the only thing keeping Square alive really is the FFVII fandom.

 

[GreiverBlade]

on the reveal news some time ago, someone called it "Flopspoken" (sadly, before i could)... oh well, nailed it

i was willing to give it a chance and try it someday ... but now i'm not 100% sure, afterall i gave CP2077 a chance and did not regret it ... but that one has no major appeal outside gameplay basically, while CP2077 had a lot of good point (for me) to redeem the chaotic launch and the "unfulfiled promises"

 

[mama]

""Square Enix company president Yosuke Matsuda stated: "Reviews of "FORSPOKEN," which we released on January 24, 2023, have been challenging. However, the game has also received positive feedback on its action features, including its parkour and combat capabilities, so it has yielded results that will lead to improvement of our development capabilities of other games in the future.""

Should I take from this that they had no beta testers to point out these obvious issues? Is that even acceptable with a company that makes videogames? No focus groups to discuss problems, just dish something out for the sake of it?

I agree. The story telling was disjointed and weird which should have been cleaned up in beta testing or earlier. As should issues with the tedious gameplay and poor environment rendering. It deserved attention if it was to be marketed as a AAA product.