Square Enix and many other publishers were reportedly convinced that consoles were “dying” prior to the release of the PS4 and Xbox One, with them allegedly panicking that the current generation of system would be “a flop.”
The report comes from gaming critic Jim Sterling, who states in his latest episode of his web series The Jimquisition that Square Enix cancelled multiple games that we don’t even know about due to this panic, and consistently meddled with their existing games. Sterling claims that trusted sources have informed him the reasoning behind Square’s move towards dividing their games into separate installments, with both Final Fantasy VII: Remake and Hitman set to receive the episodic treatment.
According to Sterling’s sources, Square’s lack of faith in consoles meant that Hitman was initially intended to be an online-only game, with free-to-play, mobile and PC gaming deemed the future by both the Japanese company and various other publishers. Hitman‘s transition to an online-only experience was therefore set to be released in chunks with the addition of microtransactions, though after the success of the PS4 and Xbox One Square reversed their decision, making it single-player but keeping it episodic, as we’ve recently learned.
Also See: Hitman’s Episodic Release Could Be the Future of Square Enix Games
Sterling claims that Square’s last-minute announcement that Hitman would be released in installments is the latest in what has been a long line of rash decisions made by the company, with them also having apparently been set on Just Cause 3 being a multiplayer-only game, too. The poor quality of the game’s single-player campaign is therefore said to be a result of design choices forced upon developer Avalanche Studios by Square, with the studio being forced to drastically alter it multiple times throughout its development process.
The video also claims that Deus Ex: Mankind Divided has also been considerably tinkered with, as Sterling’s sources claim that the game has been split into chunks in order for it to be transformed into a trilogy similar to the Mass Effect series. However, Sterling concedes that this information is a “little out of date”, so this particular rumor may not actually come to fruition.
You can watch the full video below:
