Square Enix still recommends Balan Wonderworld "with confidence" despite recent lawsuit
After the recent news that Naka sued the developer, in its recent earnings call Square Enix still said it would recommend the game.
.jpg?width=70&height=70&fit=crop&quality=60&format=png&auto=webp)
Developer Square Enix briefly touched on Balan Wonderworld during its recent full-year earnings call, after the game's director Yuji Naka recently discussed his lawsuit against the company.
Last month, Naka revealed that he had sued Square Enix over issues he faced regarding the development of Balan Wonderworld. But during the company's recent earnings call, it said that "it is a game we recommend with confidence," after confirming that it had been involved in a lawsuit with Naka. Though Square Enix declined to comment further, according to Bloomberg's Takashi Mochizuki (via VGC).
The lawsuit has now been resolved, which meant that Naka could discuss some of the reasons that Balan Wonderworld received a lacklustre response. "I personally regret that Balan Wonderworld was released to the world in an unfinished state," wrote Naka at the time. "I wanted to consider all kinds of things and release it as a proper action game. I don't think that Square Enix and Arzest value games and their fans."
Naka was supposedly removed from the project by the producer, head of marketing, sound, managing director, and HR. And he also wasn't allowed to interact with social media posts in any way, which Naka apologised for.
Upon its release, Balan Wonderworld generally received pretty unfavourable review scores, currently sitting at an unfortunately low 36 on Metacritic.
Square Enix also recently sold off some of its biggest IPs like Tomb Raider and Deus Ex, as well as the studios that make them, like Crystal Dynamics and Eidos Montreal. The deal will see these IPs and studios move over to Embrace Group, for a surprisingly small $300 million.
The weirdest part about this is that Tomb Raider is an incredibly popular series, and despite strong sales, Square Enix just never found them to be substantial enough. But hey, surely it won't do anything stupid like invest into blockchain right? It is? Nevermind.