Square Enix Presents Spring 2021 Roundup

The announcement for the presentation from Square Enix came pretty much out of nowhere. Like most people, I’m used to things like this happening around the time of conventions like E3 or Gamescom. However, more and more of these developer and publisher updates have been releasing at seemingly random times. This is of course partially because of the ongoing pandemic preventing us from going to any of these large scale conventions, but also because the world of conferences and presentation seems to be changing. I’m honestly not complaining, because watching one of these every couple of weeks is a more enjoyable experience than watching what feels like an endless amount of them over a single week.

I wasn’t disappointed in the things that Square Enix showed us during this presentation, even if there were some games I would’ve liked seeing (specifically Final Fantasy XVI). Things started off with the 25th anniversary of the beloved Tomb Raider series. While we didn’t get a new game announcement exactly, there are still some things to look forward to if you’re a fan of the series. First off, we’re getting a Tomb Raider anime-series on Netflix. This wasn’t a new announcement, I think Square Enix simply wanted to remind us that it is still happening.

A bunch of collaborations were announced as well, like crossovers with Ghost Recon: Breakpoint and Final Fantasy Brave Exvius: War of the Visions, as well as a Tomb Raider cookbook. The world of Tomb Raider is also coming to Fortnite Creative, with an adventure at Croft Manor. The last Tomb Raider related announcement was the release of the Tomb Raider: Definitive Survivor Trilogy, which puts all three reboot-games in one package with all the DLC included. Excitingly enough, this released right on the day of the conference.

Next up, Square Enix announced a couple of mobile games. The first one being Just Cause Mobile, which seems to be a co-op game and actually doesn’t look too bad. Then there’s Hitman: Sniper Assassins (Working Title) as well as the most surprising one out of the three, the Space Invaders AR Mobile Game, which looks to be heavily inspired by Pokémon Go and it’s predecessor Ingress. Speaking of Space Invaders, these announcements were followed up by some new games developed by Taito games; namely Touhou Space Bubble, Darius Cozmic Revelation and Bubble Bobble 4 Friends. Personally, none of these games blew me away, but I’m sure there’s still an audience for them, as there is for pretty much any game.

An update on Marvel’s Avengers informed us about the next gen upgrade, which makes the game run at 60 FPS and of course in 4K. Textures are provided at a higher resolution and destruction effects have been improved as well. The upgrade comes at no additional cost to those who already own the game on XBOX One or PS4, which is to be expected by these upgrades at this point. Square Enix also announced the roadmap for the game this year, which is topped off by the announced expansion set in Wakanda and a new playable character, Black Panther. You can find the whole roadmap below to check out what else has been planned for the game.

Now comes the game I’m the most excited about from the entire presentation. As a big fan of the Life is Strange-series, I was delighted when they announced the next installment, Life is Strange: True Colors. This new game, developed by Deck Nine and made with full performance capture brings with it a completely new power, which is the focus of the gameplay. The protagonist Alex has the power of Empathy. She can not only see how other people are feeling, but it can also affect her own mood, which is sure to make for some powerful story moments in the new game.

With the third game, things are being changed up with more than just the new graphics. The full game releases this September, and while it will still be split into different episodes, you’ll no longer have to wait weeks or even months between the release of these episodes. Along with Life is Strange: True Colors, Square Enix announced that there will be a remastered collection of Life is Strange and Life is Strange: Before the Storm. This collection will be part of the third game’s Ultimate Edition, but will also be released as a standalone at a later time.

The last game that got shown at this presentation was Project Athia. Along with some story-snippets and a bit of gameplay (the game looks absolutely stunning, by the way), Square Enix finally revealed the title of the full game. This new IP is now called Forspoken and is set to release some time next year. The name won’t surprise big time Square Enix-fans, because it was trademarked by Square Enix not too long ago. The name was actually rumored to be the name of the new expansion for Final Fantasy XIV, though this theory got debunked after said expansion was revealed with the name Endwalker.