{"id":49448,"date":"2025-06-26T17:22:55","date_gmt":"2025-06-26T08:22:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/?p=49448"},"modified":"2025-06-26T17:27:20","modified_gmt":"2025-06-26T08:27:20","slug":"square-enixs-non-committal-nod-to-shareholders-is-not-them-promising-a-big-comeback-of-turn-based-rpgs-nor-praise-of-clair-obscur-expedition-33","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/square-enixs-non-committal-nod-to-shareholders-is-not-them-promising-a-big-comeback-of-turn-based-rpgs-nor-praise-of-clair-obscur-expedition-33\/","title":{"rendered":"Square Enix&#8217;s non-committal nod to shareholders is not them promising a big comeback of turn-based RPGs, nor praise of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Recent headlines from English-speaking outlets have claimed that &#8220;Square Enix is planning to make more turn-based RPGs,&#8221; citing comments made at the company\u2019s recent shareholder meeting. However, this is a bit of a misunderstanding (likely caused by the language barrier), as what was actually said \u2013 according to our Japanese editorial staff \u2013&nbsp;was a measured and corporate response, not a declaration of the company\u2019s future development plans.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The misunderstanding originates <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/yuzz__\/status\/1937712849859805221\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">from a post<\/a> made by a Japanese journalist who attended Square Enix\u2019s 45<sup>th<\/sup> annual shareholders\u2019 meeting, held on June 25. During the meeting, they voiced a request that Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy titles be released more regularly, ideally alternating releases year by year. They emphasized that this wouldn\u2019t be about sacrificing quality, but about avoiding the extremes of past leadership: under president Wada (where too few major titles were released in the name of quality), and under president Matsuda (who pushed out too many, sometimes low-quality titles for the sake of quantity).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"936\" height=\"564\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 936px) 100vw, 936px\" src=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/20240119-25798-header.webp\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-49455\" srcset=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/20240119-25798-header.webp 936w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/20240119-25798-header-380x229.webp 380w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/20240119-25798-header-768x463.webp 768w\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>As part of that feedback, the reporter also expressed hope that future Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest entries would return to turn-based combat, citing both the direction shift seen in Final Fantasy XVI and the success of Sandfall Interactive\u2019s Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In response, Square Enix was cautious and noncommittal, in a manner typical of public shareholder meetings. Its executives acknowledged the feedback and reiterated that the next three years, as laid out in <a href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/square-enix-to-aggressively-pursue-multi-platform-releases-and-focus-on-in-house-development\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">the company\u2019s medium-term business plan<\/a>, are about \u201cdelivering truly entertaining games to players.\u201d They added that after this period, Square Enix does intend to ramp up its output again, including mid-sized titles. As for turn-based RPGs, they comment that they recognize them as \u201ca genre that represents Square Enix\u2019s origins,\u201d and that they are \u201ccommitted to continuing to deliver games\u201d in that category \u2013 in other words, business as usual. Regarding Expedition 33, Square Enix executives simply state that they are aware of it.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is not to say that Square Enix won\u2019t make more turn-based RPGs or doesn\u2019t have any such projects in view, but this particular statement from them did not carry such meaning, as it was simply an acknowledgment of the feedback.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Comments from Square Enix&#8217;s recent shareholders meeting have been misunderstood, likely due to the language barrier.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":49454,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gspb_post_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[17],"class_list":["post-49448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-japan-related-news"],"blocksy_meta":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Square Enix&#039;s non-committal nod to shareholders is not them promising a big comeback of turn-based RPGs, nor praise of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33\u00a0 - AUTOMATON WEST<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Comments from Square Enix&#039;s recent shareholders meeting have been misunderstood, likely due to the language barrier.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/square-enixs-non-committal-nod-to-shareholders-is-not-them-promising-a-big-comeback-of-turn-based-rpgs-nor-praise-of-clair-obscur-expedition-33\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Square Enix&#039;s non-committal nod to shareholders is not them promising a big comeback of turn-based RPGs, nor praise of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33\u00a0 - AUTOMATON WEST\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Comments from Square Enix&#039;s recent shareholders meeting have been misunderstood, likely due to the language barrier.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/square-enixs-non-committal-nod-to-shareholders-is-not-them-promising-a-big-comeback-of-turn-based-rpgs-nor-praise-of-clair-obscur-expedition-33\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"AUTOMATON WEST\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-06-26T08:22:55+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-06-26T08:27:20+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/20240308-28304-001.jpeg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1920\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1080\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Amber V\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@AUTOMATON_ENG\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@AUTOMATON_ENG\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Amber V\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Square Enix's non-committal nod to shareholders is not them promising a big comeback of turn-based RPGs, nor praise of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33\u00a0 - 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Currently devoted to growing Automaton West to the size of its Japanese sister-site, while making sure to keep news concise and developer stories deep and stimulating.","url":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/author\/amber-vjestica\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/55"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49448"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49448\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49460,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49448\/revisions\/49460"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}