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Luminous Productions, the development team behind Forspoken, will merge with publisher Square Enix on the 1st May. The Japanese outfit was already a subsidiary of Square Enix, so this essentially means that it'll no longer exist as its own studio. Instead, we assume that most of its employees will be moved to various parts of the parent company.
The core of Luminous Productions was initially made up of developers who worked on Final Fantasy XV, with the studio being officially established in 2018. Its overall purpose was to create new, big budget properties using Square Enix's Luminous Engine.
Forspoken was the company's first attempt, but it's fair to say that things didn't go especially well. The project had a somewhat troubled development cycle, complete with multiple delays, and when it did eventually release earlier this year, it was met with lukewarm reviews, and it divided player opinion.
We don't know for sure if this spells the end for the Luminous Engine, but we wouldn't be surprised to see the publisher cut its losses.
As for Forspoken, Luminous Productions says that it's still committed to the action RPG for the time being. A seemingly large update is still in the works — which aims to improve technical performance — and the title's 'In Tanta We Trust' DLC is promised for a summer launch.
Did you see this coming? Would you like to see Square Enix continue with the Luminous Engine, or is it over? Become an industry analyst in the comments section below.
[source twitter.com]
Comments 21
Hopefully, no one loses their jobs.
Let's be real: we all saw this coming.
Oh nooo... anyway.
Given the lukewarm reception (at best), I'm not surprised. From all the coverage the game received, it looked like the most bog standard fantasy third person shooter imaginable, and it's a crying shame given how much effort clearly went into the presentation.
Maybe that talent can be put to better use on better put-together games. Poor Square really is taking L after L these days.
Over the last year or so it seems square enix are cementing themselves as a JRPG only publisher/Dev, which sounds great to me.
After playing the demo, I can see why. Talented artists to be sure, but the game was just... not good. Hopefully they get to keep their jobs and improve on their craft.
Yeah. They weren't that good at making games
@RBMango
Time to make FF and once in a blue moon dragon quest and kingdom hearts
Let's be honest, Forspoken was a decent game for a first studio's project. But because of overwhelming marketing and promises expectations were too hight for this one. Once again I think that Square Enix does something strange and weird.
"...Spells the end..." very good.
Just keep them out of the mainline final fantasy series, and final fantasy 7 remake. I hope from now on the main final fantasy series games will be handled by yoshie p (from ff14 and ff16) and his team.
Always sad to see people probably lose their jobs. Hope they keep the art, designs and lighting teams. Say what you will about their games but both FF15 and Forspoken look gorgeous with the outdoor scenery.
That’s a real bummer for me. I know a lot of people are critical toward Luminous, but I’ve genuinely enjoyed their output a lot. FFXV is one of my absolute favorite FF titles, warts and all, and Forspoken was a really solid debut IP that felt fun and new. Hope Square just sets the team up for better success by just taking the Luminous title off them, for the sake of future PR for them.
This is essentially them axing the studio, and yes, it was expected at this point, FFXV was a development hell from start to finish (and they didn’t even finished it), Forspoken was a last ditch effort for the studio to show what they’re capable of but it flopped so hard that it’s currently been 2 weeks at half the price, not even a month after launch.
I guess this also means dropping the Luminous engine for good, and that’s probably the best news about this as it never really worked out.
FF15 was good but an unfinished mess and Forspoken is well Forspoken so not exactly shocked.
Now's the time for that Type 0 sequel.
Expected. Better this way. Resources can be used elsewhere.
Interesting way to celebrate the shut down of Babylon's fall.
Luminous as a general team has made two games over 15 years, both with troubled development cycles. This isn't surprising, but what's going to stop them from contaminating other teams? Mostly though tbt luminous engine is a disaster from every angle and it shouldn't still exist. Otoh doesn't 16 use a flavor of it as well?
@Tomato_Goose. Not really their first project. XV was. The game that took a decade plus to come out, then another several years after to complete and then the true ending was never even made.... They were just renamed into this studio as a subsidiary to use the engine when FF was moved to a different team
@Jayslow they look gorgeous in still frames. They're choppy nightmares in motion even on super PCs, and PS3 fugly in performance mode and it still can't hit performance steadily. The engine is just awful. Though in irony I hear just recently xv was patched on PC and performs much better now. I'm not sure that's really saying much when it's almost a decade later on hardware 8x more powerful than when it launched and only on PC....
tbh its probably a relief to those staff that are retained. It must have been awful for them; they would have known they had overstretched their ambition beyond their talent - and thats not going to be a comfortable position.
I hope they all find a job that is right for them, in SE or elsewhere.
@NEStalgia FFXV hasn't been patched in a while... and well, it still runs like dog crap on a 3080ti and i7-11700K system.
Rest in peace Luminous Productions, but hopefully all of the employees will still have jobs working somewhere else in the company!
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