Make no mistake, the stranglehold of media entertainment by institutions, investment firms, and asset managers has forced entire companies into compliance with socio-ethical progressive values centered on inclusivity and diversity has been nothing short of a cancer, a regressive plague that has ravaged the gaming industry.
With ESG-backed ethical financing failing to compensate for consumers increasingly rejecting and abstaining from big-budget commercial products, the industry’s foundations are crumbling.
One such company that has fallen victim to this Western influence and is now suffering the consequences are Square Enix. Formerly known as SquareSoft during their golden years, they were once pioneers of the Japanese RPG genre, celebrated as industry innovators.
However, in recent years, their creative direction has sharply declined, and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth director Naoki Hamaguchi has all but confirmed what many already suspected: Square Enix is bleeding both finances and consumer interest.
In a recent interview following the game’s GRAND AWARD win at the PlayStation Partner Awards 2024 Japan Asia, Hamaguchi openly admitted that Square Enix now prioritizes “global standards” and “ethical reviews,” shaping their games to cater to the Western market rather than staying true to their core Japanese audience.
Square Enix has been bending themselves to adhere to these global standards and ethical reviews, all to adhere towards Western ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) overlords, obsessed with diversity, inclusivity, and neutering anything remotely Japanese.
The result is a gutted legacy, censored female forms, gender-neutral rewrites, and a once-mighty JRPG pioneer bleeding cash while swearing fealty to an agenda of enforced homosexuality and racial inclusivity which have led to the sanitization of their products and have ultimately corrupted the very soul of Japanese game design for the sake of global inclusivity outreach and ethics.
Hamaguchi’s own words are a smoking gun, Square Enix isn’t making games for Japan anymore, it’s crafting sanitized slop for a faceless “global audience,” with every creative spark snuffed out by ethical busybodies.
“We now create with a global audience in mind from the very start. In that sense, we are in a completely different era.”
Hamaguchi’s words are a stark confession. Gone are the days when Final Fantasy was crafted for Japanese players first, its global success an organic byproduct of its unapologetic creativity and distinctly Japanese nature. Today, Square Enix conducts “thorough ethical reviews tailored to different regions,” ensuring their games “don’t become a source of negativity for anyone.”
The company is bending over backwards to placate Western sensibilities, enforcing benign censorship of the female form and injecting diversity initiatives that clash with the distinct cultural identity that once defined their JRPGs.
Take Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, the second installment in the trilogy remaking a beloved classic. Instead of staying true to the original vision, Hamaguchi’s team has taken significant liberties, seemingly prioritizing modern sensitivities over authenticity.
This is especially evident with the removal of so-called “problematic” elements, such as the hidden ability to steal Tifa’s underwear. Speaking of which, Tifa’s design itself has been drastically altered from her 1997 portrayal, with Square Enix’s own “ethics department” mandating a reduction in her bust size to diminish the “male gaze.”
Naoki Hamaguchi has previously stated that the original Final Fantasy VII was “a difficult title to get into,” prompting the team to adapt it for modern audiences by streamlining mechanics and simplifying the overworld. This shift has resulted in a radically altered action RPG experience, complete with excessive tutorials seemingly tailored for today’s lowest common denominator.
The story has also been altered in various ways, with the so-called “remakes” turning the Honeybee Inn brothel into a makeshift cabaret club, forcing players into a flamboyant, homoerotic cross-dressing dance sequence.
Meanwhile, Square Enix’s marketing outside Japan leans aggressively into LGBT pandering, an ironic move, considering the games themselves have been scrubbed of anything remotely provocative.
This pattern repeats across Square Enix’s portfolio. The Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake has stripped away male and female terminology, censored iconic character designs, removed religious symbolism, and toned down the depiction of attractive, curvaceous women, all in the name of modern sensitivities.
Overseeing it all is Square Enix’s ever-present “Ethics Department,” ensuring the once proudly Japanese company fixates on creating sanitized, globally “inclusive” titles. In doing so, it continues to erode its distinct cultural identity and appeal.
The fallout is undeniable. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth and Final Fantasy XVI, once positioned as Square Enix’s blockbuster AAA flagships, both fell short of expectations, an outcome the company itself has admitted.
In May 2024, Square Enix’s stock plunged 20% following a staggering 71% drop in net sales and profits, compounded by a $140.8 million loss from canceled projects, although by today’s standards the company has since rebounded ~40% since then.
Exclusivity deals with Sony on consoles and Epic Games on PC couldn’t salvage the performance of their games. Censored releases continue to alienate the core audience that once revered Square Enix as a JRPG titan. Hamaguchi’s push for accessibility, making games compatible “across a wide range of devices” to avoid “narrowing the player base” feels less like innovation and more like ideological conformity, and the company is paying the price.
The damage from this corporate-driven approach is clear in Square Enix’s declining fortunes. Despite aggressive marketing, recent titles have flopped. Forspoken was a disaster, despite its Western-centric development and promotional push. Final Fantasy XVI, though critically acclaimed, underperformed commercially.
Even Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, a game built on the nostalgia of one of the most beloved RPGs of all time, failed to reach Square Enix’s financial expectations. An inadvertent marketing stunt featuring the female cast in swimsuits could only do so much when Square Enix proceeded to burn bridges with fans by unleashing a censorship patch for Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade, altering Tifa’s cowboy outfit four years after the game released under the guise of “continuity.”
The reality is simple: sanitization and global “ethical” conformity kill creativity and drive away dedicated audiences. Square Enix, once a pioneer of the JRPG genre, is now hemorrhaging money in pursuit of a global audience that doesn’t reciprocate its efforts.
By allowing ESG initiatives and Western-centric ethics boards to dictate creative direction, Square Enix has stripped away the very elements that made Japanese RPGs unique. The result? A slow but undeniable decline of a once-legendary gaming empire. “Ethical compliance” and “global market tailoring” do not guarantee success.
Hamaguchi waxes poetic about Rebirth’s “clear concepts” like “bonds,” but what’s the point when every decision is filtered through an ESG-driven lens of sterility? The distinct characteristics that made Japanese RPGs stand out, bold storytelling, unapologetic fanservice, aesthetics and cultural authenticity are being systematically targeted and eroded.
Dragon Quest creator Yuji Horii has openly expressed frustration over American influence creeping into his beloved series, particularly with Square Enix’s handling of the Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake.
He criticized the company’s push for “global inclusivity,” calling out unwarranted censorship and the removal of male and female descriptors. Horii went so far as to describe these changes as “an evil disguised as good,” highlighting his discontent with the direction not just Square Enix have taken, but subsequently every other mainstream and respected Japanese gaming tyrant.
Rather than heeding this criticism, Square Enix has only doubled down. Hamaguchi, the driving force behind the second Final Fantasy VII Remake installment, remains devoted to a so-called “global stage” that prioritizes safe, sanitized, and inoffensive content.
When confronted during a shareholder meeting about their increasingly “woke” creative direction, the company sidestepped accountability and has since unveiled a new anti-harassment policy, not to protect fans, but to insulate employees pushing this agenda from any form of dissent.
Hamaguchi’s vision of “expanding Japanese entertainment” sounds promising on paper, but in practice, it has resulted in a hollowed-out, homogenized product. Square Enix, once the undisputed leader of the JRPG genre, now stands as a cautionary tale of how ideological conformity and Western pandering can destroy a legacy.
Their future multiplatform strategy may extend their reach, but it only amplifies the failures of their misguided approach.
The release of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth stands as a troubling sign for Square Enix’s future. Despite relying heavily on nostalgia and brand recognition, it failed to meet expectations, proving that a recognizable name alone can’t overcome the mediocrity imposed by corporate decisions.
If nothing changes, why would the situation improve?
The third and final installment in the modernized Final Fantasy VII Remake trilogy, once set to be a triumphant reimagining, now risks falling apart under the weight of Square Enix’s self-inflicted wounds, as each new release continues to underperform more drastically than the last.
If Square Enix continues down this path, they may soon face the same fate as other once-dominant companies that abandoned their core audience in pursuit of an illusory global market. The fans who built their empire will not stick around forever if their voices remain ignored. A reckoning is coming, and unless Square Enix course-corrects, it may find itself yet another casualty of an industry that traded creativity for corporate compliance.
