Square Enix is "considering" various ideas about remastering more of its older titles
The Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster games launched on PS4 and Switch earlier this year.
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In a recent shareholders meeting, Square Enix noted that it was "considering," remastering more of its older titles after the success of the Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters.
As reported by VGC, Square Enix recently held its 43rd Annual Shareholder's Meeting Q&A, where the company's board was asked about if it had any plans to remaster more of its older games considering the success of the Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster games. "Final Fantasy I-VI Pixel Remaster has been well received. Are there plans to remaster other past titles?" a shareholder asked. "Personally, I would like to play Xenogears."
One member of the board responded, "We will refrain from sharing information about new titles, but we are considering various ideas within the company and hope that you will look forward to forthcoming announcements." Maybe that shareholder will get their Xenogears wish after all.
For the most part, though, as opposed to slightly less resource intensive remasters, Square Enix has been releasing remakes of its older games. Most recently it announced Star Ocean: The Second Story R, a remake of the second game in the Star Ocean series that was originally released on the PS1. This remake is going for its HD-2D look established with Octopath Traveller, and continued with in last year's Live A Live remake. And there's also the Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D remake that's on the way too.
Aside from the topic of remasters, Square Enix was also asked why it has "longer gaps between game releases than its peers do," as well as what the board's thoughts were on its current release schedule for upcoming games.
"I will refrain from speaking in specifics, but I will say that we believe that the strengthening of our internal development organisation will be of benefit as the difficulty of developing major titles is becoming extremely high, which also has implications for development lead times," responded one member of the board. "We hope that this reinforcement of our organisation will promote the development not only of major titles but also new IPs under the new management team."
The biggest project that Square has in the works constituting a remake is obviously Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, which is due out early 2024, as revealed in a trailer last month.