Forspoken’s moderate success apparently proved insufficient for Luminous Productions to continue operating in its current form. The team responsible for the game will soon be absorbed by Square Enix.
Originally Project Athia, and finally Forspoken was to be one of the hits of early 2023. Unfortunately, the hopes placed on the project have not been fulfilled. The game was met with mixed reception from critics and gamers, mostly due to numerous technical issues and an uninspiring story. The ambitious project also did not help the developers of the Luminous Productions studio which, as a result, will soon end its activities in its current form..
The information was transmitted in a message published on the company’s channel on Blood. The statement says that effective May 1, 2023, the Luminous Productions team will become part of parent company Square Enix (where it has operated as an in-house team since 2018)de facto lose its status as an independent development team.
However, this does not mean that the developers will stop working on improving Forspoken. The developers emphasized that they were “still fully focused” on their title. Evidenced by an update currently in preparation to improve the performance of the game, as well as a DLC planned for the summer, called In Tanta We Trust. You can read the full announcement below:
Source: Twitter, Luminous Productions
Although the exact reason for the pseudo-discontinuation has not been revealed, the announcement comes just weeks after Forspoken began to receive cold reviews.
The developers haven’t revealed whether Square Enix’s takeover of the team will spell the end of the Luminous Engine, the proprietary graphics engine that was arguably one of the company’s greatest achievements. Recall that the technology was used in the two titles of Luminous Productions: Final Fantasy XV and Forspoken.