As Square Enix tries to raise the bar for its own games, president says that doesn’t mean only releasing massive AAA behemoths
Square Enix president Takashi Kiryu has confirmed that the company is still working on “small- to medium-sized” games despite the company’s newly revealed medium-term business plan, in which outlined plans to shift from “quantity to quality” and “regularly release AAA titles in its major franchises.”
In a series of Twitter posts, reporter @michsuzu (translated by Automaton, and verified by GamesRadar+ using Google and DeepL) notes that in a recent shareholders’ meeting, Kiryu was asked if the company’s new business plan means that it won’t be developing indie games. He reassures fans that, assuming by ‘indie’ they mean “small- to medium-sized” games, then that’s still something that the company is working on.
While he can’t currently name any specific titles in development, the president confirms that it’s not just huge, large-scale games in the pipeline right now, which is exciting, even if mysterious. We definitely can’t expect a games schedule solely consisting of mainline Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts installments going forward, anyway.
Speaking a little further, Kiryu explains that there’s a focus on making sure that games are released at the best possible time, which sounds like it may tie into the whole “quantity to quality” idea. He didn’t give any specific examples, so his idea of what ‘good timing’ is could mean any number of things for a game, from avoiding clashing with other major releases, to when within a console generation’s lifespan it launches. This seems like something that we might be able to figure out as time presses on and more new Square Enix games are released, though.
To be fair, when outlining the business plan earlier this year, Square Enix didn’t say that smaller titles were off the table, even if it did seem to put a lot of focus on AAA games and major franchises. One key quote states that it “will strive for a regular launch cadence, focusing its development efforts and investments on titles with substantial potential to be loved by customers for years,” which doesn’t narrow things down to solely large-scale titles at all. With that said, it’s nice to get the confirmation from Kiryu that smaller-scale games are definitely part of the company’s vision, too.