Square Enix has built up a reputation for having high sales expectations when it comes to its games. In some cases, this high bar has proven to be an unreasonable marker which makes it hard to know just which franchise will continue, even popular and well-liked ones such as the Tomb Raider reboot feel into this. Now the long-awaited sequel to The World Ends With You, which was entitled NEO: The World Ends With You, is the latest Square Enix title that has failed to meet expectations.
This year, the total sales of the company were lower, year-over-year. During this time period, the company has released several titles including Outriders, Life Is Strange: True Colors, Neir Replicant, as well as NEO, which Chief Accounting Officer Atsushi Matsuda has stated performed weaker than their previous year. It is important to note that 2020 so the extremely high profile Final Fantasy 7: Remake which has a far bigger built-in audience than all those other titles combined.
Square Enix President stated that “While NEO: The World Ends With You was well received by users, it has underperformed our initial expectations.” It is relatively hard to know from that if the game actually sold low, or was simply expected to perform higher than it would.
Despite this fact, the company reports that Final Fantasy XIV continues to perform extremely well, pulling in even more players to its subscription model. With its next expansion, Endwalker, planned to release on December 7th, this number should only be expected to rise from here.
In my review for Neo: The World Ends With You from earlier this year I stated that it “is one of the coolest RPGs you will play and not just this year.” and that “While the story doesn’t bring anything new to the table when compared to the original, this isn’t always a bad thing. The strongest points with both stories, which lies with the characters deliver in a way that few games do and make becoming invested in their journey easy.”
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