Square Enix are still focused on blockchain in 2023

In a New Year’s message, Sq. Enix’s CEO Yosuke Matsuda reaffirmed the corporate’s deal with blockchain expertise with “a number of blockchain video games based mostly on authentic IPs beneath growth” regardless of the general public backlash towards the initiative. This echoes Matsuda’s New Year’s message from final January, the place the corporate first expressed its enthusiasm for an NFT-fueled, metaverse future. Extra lately, Squeenix partnered with the “environmentally pleasant” blockchain agency Oasys, most likely to sidestep potential controversies about, y’know, the environmental impact of the technology.

Matsuda addressed a few of the public pushback in his letter, claiming that new tech often receives preliminary backlash earlier than changing into broadly accepted. “New applied sciences and frameworks result in innovation, however additionally they create appreciable confusion,” he wrote. “Having ridden out such societal tides, some such applied sciences and frameworks regularly turn out to be a part of folks’s lives, ultimately giving rise to new companies and development.”

Nevertheless, Matsuda did admit that “The market was pushed extra by speculative traders than by players” at this level. Though, he did level to “a number of blockchain gaming occasions held abroad” that “produced extra lively dialogue than ever earlier than about what makes the video games thrilling and what their consumer neighborhood appears to be like like.” Sq. hasn’t made issues much less complicated, as we nonetheless do not understand how this tech may truly enhance video games.

Blockchain is clearly on the firm’s forefront. After promoting a handful of their western studios and IP for $300 million, together with Tomb Raider and Deus Ex, Squeenix talked about that they’d be capable of use the extra money to launch “new companies by shifting ahead with investments in fields together with blockchain, AI, and the cloud.”

Elsewhere in Sq.’s kingdom, a handful of live-service video games are quietly shutting down. The Closing Fantasy 7 battle-royale spin-off, The First Soldier, ends providers on January eleventh, adopted by Bravely Default: Good Lights on February twenty eighth. This follows from kart racer Chocobo GP which stopped receiving help in December 2022, 9 months after its launch.

It’s not all dangerous information for Sq. followers, as Closing Fantasy producer Yoshinori Kitase teased followers with “one other large announcement unrelated to FFVII” in a special New Years’ letter. Many followers have speculated that Kitase could possibly be referring to a Closing Fantasy 9 remake, based mostly on the prophetic Nvidia leaks. Personally, Closing Fantasy 9 is ideal as it’s, so I’ve my fingers crossed for a brand new challenge. I’ll most likely simply replay FF9 anyway.

No matter any recreation shutterings, blockchain controversy, or basic remakes, Sq. Enix is poised to have a reasonably good 2023. Their magic-flinging parkour recreation Forspoken releases in a couple of weeks on January twenty fourth. On June twenty second, Sq.’s greatest collection returns with Final Fantasy 16 – presently a timed unique for PS5. Then the subsequent a part of their FF7 saga continues with Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth subsequent winter, additionally debuting as a timed unique for PS5.