There are too many RPGs coming, and Square Enix is to blame

polygon.com:

Reeling from pandemic production issues — and, perhaps, a gradual shift toward more sustainable working practices — the video game industry is well into a product drought. After a barren summer, we are facing a meager release schedule through fall and toward the end of the year, with few of the major titles and platform exclusives that usually adorn the season. By all accounts, late 2022 is a quiet time for video games.

But nobody told Square Enix.

The venerable Japanese publisher has a stacked release schedule. Between mid-September and mid-December it is releasing no less than nine games — and as many as 12, if you count the PC version of Triangle Strategy, theLife Is StrangeArcadia Bay Collection on Switch, and the strange mobile compendium-remake-thing Final Fantasy 7 Ever Crisis, which is supposed to go into beta testing this year.

There are no massive releases in this lineup, but quite a few remakes and reissues, as well as some lesser spinoffs and genre experiments. But you couldn’t call it modest, either; there’s ambition and breadth here, as well as daunting, exhaustive length — most of these games offer some kind of variation on a JRPG template, and are not shy of slow buildups or sprawling run times.

Together, the games paint a picture of a publisher letting go of its attempt to be a global monolith, following the sale of its Western studios and properties such as Deus Ex and Tomb Raider to Embracer Group, and embracing its Japanese identity as it rides a wave of anime popularity and a groundswell of JRPG content on Switch and Steam. Not long ago, many of these games would never have made it to the West at all, let alone see day-and-date global releases.

At a recent event in London, adorned with fake cherry