Square Enix has announced a new original video game IP that will be created in collaboration with a TV show network company. Square Enix, best known for Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, Dragon Quest, and several other popular game series, currently has four announced in-development projects, in addition to this new team-up project and continuing development on the massively successful MMO Final Fantasy 14. With this announcement, it seems Square Enix's plate is going to get even fuller.

As reported by VGC, Square Enix said in a press release that the company will be teaming up with TBS Television, best known for airing Ninja Warrior, Ultraman, and Takeshi’s Castle, to create a new video game IP. The two companies will be combining their experiences with interactive media to create this new game, and it will be released both in Japan and internationally. Square Enix said the collaboration was part of its new medium-term business plan to create more original IP and develop new business models.

What We Know About Square Enix's New Game IP

Not A Lot, But We Can Look At Both Companies' Bodies Of Work For Some Ideas

No other direct information was shared about the project, whether work has begun on the new IP, or any hints about the new game or its genre. But, Square Enix is changing its business strategy moving forward and is "rebooting" itself, and this new project is confirmed to be a part of this new business strategy. Also reported by The Final Fantasy series has struggled with branding in recent years, with the newest FF entries allegedly underperforming by Square's internal metrics.

Despite Square Enix's new emphasis on quality over quantity, there are still a lot of games in development by the studio, so it seems plausible that this new title is in very early conceptual development. Most of Square Enix's Japanese-developed games are RPGs, and a lot of the shows broadcast on TBS Television are competition shows. So, it's possible this new collaboration is a multiplayer game of sorts, or, if the partnership is more on the Ultraman side of things, maybe it's a video game adaptation of an Ultraman story. This is just speculation, of course, and it could be any number of things.

Any New IP Should Be An Exciting One

Square Enix Is Mostly A Legacy Game Studio

Any new IP announcement is intriguing, especially in this age of remasters and remakes. Square Enix's latest release that wasn't FF or another one of its juggernaut franchises was a classic FF spiritual successor called Fantasian: New Dimension, and even that game was a re-release of the 2021 version of the game from developer Mistwalker. Hopefully, the game's development goes smoothly and the partnership with TBS Television is a pleasant one.

Still, there are several projects that we do know about from Square Enix, and adding another one may cause some anxiety for fans. Kingdom Hearts Missing-Link was officially canceled this week, and allegedly, in addition to announced projects, there might be a team working on a remake of Final Fantasy 9, too. There are a lot of pots cooking for Square Enix at the moment, but hopefully, after its business reboot is complete, fans will see more steady releases from this legendary studio.

Source: VGC (1), (2)