Is its profitability taking into account just FFXV or Versus XIII and those 6 years before it was turned into FFXV? Because yeah I can see it not being very profitable having been worked on for a decade before it actually materialized.
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Chris Dring: Final Fantasy XVI UK boxed sales 74% lower than FFXV
- Thread starter Deleted member 93062
- Start date
- Square Enix
Yep, I was about to say something similar. People have been saying the series reinvents itself every game for decades, but back during the franchise's heyday that was generally just referring to extremely specific things like fiddly mechanical details, character progression methods, and setting. Broad strokes stuff like structure and flow and especially genre were really similar between entries. I don't even think X was very different.
This isn't actually true and it's a take that continually gets repeated around here despite evidence pointing to the contrary.
FFXV released to very good reviews and a divisive reaction amongst the more hardcore fanbase that posts on places like ResetEra. But that is obviously a small portion of the overall consumer base.
It then went on to have very good legs and kept selling over multiple years, which points toward positive word of mouth.
Man you really are reaching if you think a 18% drop in 1st class postal targets is what's accounting for a drop off in physical pre orders / a change in purchasing habits. You do realise the vast majority of pre order in the last few years do not even use 1st class post and use tracked 24 right?
And why are we acting like the digital share is some massive mystery? We know that basically all single player releases max out at 50% on release. And are people forgetting that in Squares (Japan) PR for FFVIIR hitting 5 million they literally said it was their first Playstation title to top 2 million digital sales worldwide - so expecting it to be anything other than 40-50% is just wishful thinking with no basis in the actual numbers
In my case, I was planning to go physical but switched to digital when I felt I didn't want to risk it not arriving or late and so I could play sooner in the day.
I've switched over to PC a lot since the end of PS4 gen, so got a lot more stuff digitally since, few things I get physically nowadays, only if the price difference is significant, its something I particular want physical (like a CE or deluxe edition or just for collection reasons) and I can deal with waiting in the worst case (another thing I think has gone down hill from online retailers, having to sign contracts to not send games before a certain day/time, so it feels long gone are the times of getting games early and increasingly having to be thankful to get it day 1, which I feel it more bare minimum)
Saying that, Switch stuff is probably the exception. I get mostly physical there, only really go digital there if it's something I can see myself wanting to go back to a lot in future (e.g. SSB/MK8D) or its just cheaper or lately if Nintendo releases something digitally there earlier than physical.
I've switched over to PC a lot since the end of PS4 gen, so got a lot more stuff digitally since, few things I get physically nowadays, only if the price difference is significant, its something I particular want physical (like a CE or deluxe edition or just for collection reasons) and I can deal with waiting in the worst case (another thing I think has gone down hill from online retailers, having to sign contracts to not send games before a certain day/time, so it feels long gone are the times of getting games early and increasingly having to be thankful to get it day 1, which I feel it more bare minimum)
Saying that, Switch stuff is probably the exception. I get mostly physical there, only really go digital there if it's something I can see myself wanting to go back to a lot in future (e.g. SSB/MK8D) or its just cheaper or lately if Nintendo releases something digitally there earlier than physical.
the problem isnt older players, it never is.
we had an open world, no playable party and action FF that went on to sell extremely well at launch and long term. its proof that SE doesnt need to heed to any calling.
its praises were also lighter than VIIR and XVI's, so again, praises also not the defining factor and definitely not a "cope". it's something that Square still needs to find in terms of the appeal to once again break into mainstream
going action made them get the biggest success in the last 20 years of FF history, and probably for the next 5-10
Its funny to see Atlus being smart for once. Released persona ports for GP to grow an audience, then announce P3R day 1 GP aswell while also announcing a new IP day on the platform that previous gamers now familiar with the games will be interested in.
Same, I was one of the people who they managed to hook and reeled me in. FF15 while it is still a nice emotional game with what it is, we can't forget how it launched in a poor state with non playable characters and performance issues, had their ending chapter revised via royal edition to satisfy people who weren't feeling one of the final chapters of the game, some scenes/segments were just cut out of the game for no reason and the DLC release schedule along with the 2nd piece of DLC just canceling and put into a random novel, so yeah. People can't really say FFXV is the better game due to "numbers"/because in overall quality? FF16 stomps FF15 especially in the gaming department/visuals and yes I'm going to say it...I'm enjoying FF16's story quite more than I did with FF15's.
Even if the digital split is huge, I still don't think it'll reach XV and I definitely don't think it'll reach the wide new audience they were hoping for, unless some legs really hit it. Youtube views were relatively low during the whole marketing cycle and, while the demo seemed to be a hit, it feels like it may have been too little too late. I sincerely love the game, but the reactions to pretty much every showing have been muted in terms of the mainstream. It never seemed to hit how they wanted it to.
The funny thing is, with some feedback, I really think the something that builds on XVI could absolutely be *that* breakout game. There's a lot to love with XVI, a few stumblings aside. I'm absolutely loving my time with the game and I think its the best single player FF game since at least XII.
If I were to take a few guesses, I think the lack of a real party system hurt it. I know that's been my one gripe with the game, so take me with a grain of salt, but I legit think the ensemble cast is a marketing point in the series. You can't show a ton of heartwarming party interaction and cool gameplay with different characters in the trailers if its really focused on a single character and those moments don't exist much (and where they do exist are story spoilers so you can't put many of them in trailers). Think about when Barret or Tifa showed up and were seen as playable in the VII Remake trailers. People popped off. And nostalgia was a big thing for that, of course, but it was also just cool to see the different characters and their styles. Those hype moments couldn't really exist in FFXVI marketing because of its single character focus, and I do think an ensemble cast matters in these games.
Also, much as I personally like the setting, I think the "grounded" (lol to say that about the game having actually gone through it) medieval setting hurt it. It made sense when the game started development and Witcher 3 and GOT-Fever were everywhere, but by the time it released, those boons had faded. I think it's relatively clear that the outlandish character designs and crazy cheeseball tropes (I say it with all the love in the world for Final Fantasy cheese) are an appealing element to the series.
I really don't think the action combat or the lack of RPG elements (which is a criticism I pretty vehemently disagree with, at least in comparison to the rest of its own series) hurt it. FFXV had strong sales and was an action game. Honestly, the marketing of FFXVI as "the first action FF game" was fucking bizarre. I personally think FFXVI is a vastly better game overall than FFXV, but XV had an immediately emotional story hook with its characters at the forefront, weird and striking character design, an interesting (at least on a surface level) "modern fantasy" world, and, loathe as I am to say it, an open world.
And the above is why I think it would be a mistake to throw the baby out with the bathwater here. There's a very strong base to build on with XVI. Hell, it's at an 87 on Metacritic and an 89 on opencritic. That itself indicates a very good game, if not necessarily an all-timer. And CBU3 is very, very good at hearing feedback.
You keep the fantastic action combat, expand the ability customization, put together a party of three or four cool, outlandishly designed characters that I can build with those options, even out the structure of the game (seriously, the game is so backloaded in quality it's crazy), and I really think you could have a hit. A really emotional, high concept story by Natsuko Ishikawa would help too. Also, I really, really hate to say it, but open world, or at least much larger open zones, may really be a factor here. Which annoys me to no end but I can't deny it.
CBU3 *can* make this happen, I think. But you have to let them build on what they've created here rather than starting from scratch for every goddamn game in the series.
The funny thing is, with some feedback, I really think the something that builds on XVI could absolutely be *that* breakout game. There's a lot to love with XVI, a few stumblings aside. I'm absolutely loving my time with the game and I think its the best single player FF game since at least XII.
If I were to take a few guesses, I think the lack of a real party system hurt it. I know that's been my one gripe with the game, so take me with a grain of salt, but I legit think the ensemble cast is a marketing point in the series. You can't show a ton of heartwarming party interaction and cool gameplay with different characters in the trailers if its really focused on a single character and those moments don't exist much (and where they do exist are story spoilers so you can't put many of them in trailers). Think about when Barret or Tifa showed up and were seen as playable in the VII Remake trailers. People popped off. And nostalgia was a big thing for that, of course, but it was also just cool to see the different characters and their styles. Those hype moments couldn't really exist in FFXVI marketing because of its single character focus, and I do think an ensemble cast matters in these games.
Also, much as I personally like the setting, I think the "grounded" (lol to say that about the game having actually gone through it) medieval setting hurt it. It made sense when the game started development and Witcher 3 and GOT-Fever were everywhere, but by the time it released, those boons had faded. I think it's relatively clear that the outlandish character designs and crazy cheeseball tropes (I say it with all the love in the world for Final Fantasy cheese) are an appealing element to the series.
I really don't think the action combat or the lack of RPG elements (which is a criticism I pretty vehemently disagree with, at least in comparison to the rest of its own series) hurt it. FFXV had strong sales and was an action game. Honestly, the marketing of FFXVI as "the first action FF game" was fucking bizarre. I personally think FFXVI is a vastly better game overall than FFXV, but XV had an immediately emotional story hook with its characters at the forefront, weird and striking character design, an interesting (at least on a surface level) "modern fantasy" world, and, loathe as I am to say it, an open world.
And the above is why I think it would be a mistake to throw the baby out with the bathwater here. There's a very strong base to build on with XVI. Hell, it's at an 87 on Metacritic and an 89 on opencritic. That itself indicates a very good game, if not necessarily an all-timer. And CBU3 is very, very good at hearing feedback.
You keep the fantastic action combat, expand the ability customization, put together a party of three or four cool, outlandishly designed characters that I can build with those options, even out the structure of the game (seriously, the game is so backloaded in quality it's crazy), and I really think you could have a hit. A really emotional, high concept story by Natsuko Ishikawa would help too. Also, I really, really hate to say it, but open world, or at least much larger open zones, may really be a factor here. Which annoys me to no end but I can't deny it.
CBU3 *can* make this happen, I think. But you have to let them build on what they've created here rather than starting from scratch for every goddamn game in the series.
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Not just that, it had a custom engine built for it (Luminous).
Luminous + FFXV + Versus XIII development = not cheap
Not just a 'field', Gran Pulse is a big area, like a supersized version of the Calm Lands to Zarnarkand area from FFX, there's cieth ruins/town of Oerba, a giant tower, springs, mine and the Arychylte Steppe which I assume you mean the field. YMMV on whether it was a fun or boring region to explore.
I don't speak for the mainstream but for me XIII has more crucial aspects of a FF game, a playable party and a version of the active time battle system.
It is weird that people are trying to argue XV was a resounding success compared to XVI purely on the sales numbers when Luminous Studio no longer exists
I give all the credit for that to Sega, but yeah I agree. Hopefully the strategy pays off. At the very least, it is logical that more people will get exposed to their games and if they like the games will potentially buy more.
The moment they rebooted vs13 as 15, all the sunk costs that went into the engine and vs13 aren't relevant to the success or failure of 15 from an accounting/financial statement point of view.
Forspoken giga bombed
You aren't off, but there's some important context that needs to be kept in place here.
FF15 did score better than people remember, being in the low 80s at launch. That's not bad by any stretch, and it's not a major drop from what 13 and 14:ARR had averaged. It also did represent a jump from what 14 originally had, but we were already well into the point of people having turned around on that one. With that said, its reviews still represented a pretty noticeable dip from what new mainline Final Fantasies had been getting (low 90s) from the point that metacritic tracks, with XI being the only real outlier (and even that averaged higher still). For people looking for a return to form, FFXV's reviews didn't indicate that on average.
Additionally, yes, the game had incredible legs. There is no denying that. There is also no denying that it had positive word of mouth by people saying that the game got particularly good when all the DLC had dropped/Royal Edition released, regardless of how true that actually was. What is also true with regards to 15's legs that can not be ignored here is how quickly and deeply it hit bargain bin status. New and used copies of the game were available pretty cheaply not that long after release and both the original base game and the Royal edition saw frequent sales to drop it even lower. This is also true of FF7 and FF10 (the other two top sellers of the franchise), but even they enjoyed a little longer time before they started getting sold cheaply and even then 7's floor for a new copy was $20, while 15 went even lower.
FWIW, I'm not sure SquareEnix saw it that way. The reason they had absurdly high expectations for the Tomb Raider reboot was because they were actively factoring in all the sunk costs from earlier attempts at that game that weren't the actual reboot itself.
As someone who works in the video game industry, particularly managing the financials on projects, I wish that were true. Work on Luminous Engine/Versus 13 absolutely carried over into XV, they didn't start from scratch again.
And even if you try to argue that XV should stand on its own, it still had a massive budget.
FFXV also represented the dawn of games selling well digitally and having a big pc release where take home revenues are much higher then they were back when games were physical only. FFXV is likely the most profitable game from a revenue perspective (ignoring the mmos obviously).
Also that's not how it works. CD/Eidos we know were bleeding money like crazy for years and the main reason the Hd gaming division wasn't profitable. Odds are SE's high expectations for CD/Eidos games were based upon what was needed to be profitable. We know from SE FFXV was profitable the first day
Final Fantasy XV Was Profitable After Its First Day - PlayStation LifeStyle
Speaking with DualShockers recently, Game Director Hajime Tabata revealed that Final Fantasy XV had recouped its development costs on day one, six million.
www.playstationlifestyle.net
So all those "waaah deep discounted sales game didn't really sell that well" are irrelevant, those extra 5 million sales were mostly gravy.
I'm talking good accounting, any company that is given the choice of cancel or reboot development has already made their choice to write off all the time and money spent otherwise. It's at that point you decide if "the x money we invest to reboot this project needs to make y to be profitable" vs "what other project would be y profitable is we spent x on it". If companies are considering sunk costs in profitability they're doing dog shit accounting.
isnt that thread dead? why would I go back to it just to bump it? who's interested in that? i'm freaking responding to anyone here lmao. i'm half scared i'm gonna get a warning for too much responding
also, the fact that he specifically talks about looking at a 18month plan to judge the game's sales more than indicates that he knew launch wasnt going to set anything on fire. i would hope that he knew, since we are not in the dev team and we also knew that. there's no way that launch sales of XVI were going to be amazing. it's a packed year and it comes out after the biggest hitter of the year, Zelda, and D4 which is also insanely popular and FF is not a brand that has had much mainstream appeal at all lately. it's actually extremely smart for them to develop a sales plan that spend several months. that's...a good thing. more developers should do that.
i agree with that. i still hold the opinion that FFXV, the open world, action and no playable party members with magic being a craftable item and rpg elements diminished, was the least FF game at launch ever. still, it went on to be the biggest success in the last 20 years of FF history, and probably for the next decade or so. if we are talking about sales, there's a story here.
Oh for sure. I'm only bringing up the deeply discounted games to provide additional context for what helped to keep the game selling past the point of already having done very well.
Tons of games get deep discounts and don't leg out to 10 million. It's absolutely an excuse to try and discredit the games success.
Oh, I can see how I formatted that confusingly.
I wasn't saying that to you. You quote was in there as an example of one of the posts pointing out that they were misrepresenting the interview. Sorry about that.
Yeah I'm not saying it's the most successful one overall. But people in this thread are acting like it was some mega catastrophic failure like FF Spirits Within or something. It made profit after day one. It sold 10 million copies lifetime. That's very good for FF. Like people keep pushing their dislike of FFXV over the factual success about FFXV
Final Fantasy XV Was Profitable After Its First Day - PlayStation LifeStyle
Speaking with DualShockers recently, Game Director Hajime Tabata revealed that Final Fantasy XV had recouped its development costs on day one, six million.
www.playstationlifestyle.net
oh damn, i thought i was ignoring everyone in another thread lol
it's crazy. literally half of people's arguments fall to crumbs with the existence of FFXV. it was proof that many things that people fault that FF is doing wrong were actually incredibly succesful, if used correctlyYeah I'm not saying it's the most successful one overall. But people in this thread are acting like it was some mega catastrophic failure like FF Spirits Within or something. It made profit after day one. It sold 10 million copies lifetime. That's very good for FF. Like people keep pushing their dislike of FFXV over the factual success about FFXV
Final Fantasy XV Was Profitable After Its First Day - PlayStation LifeStyle
Speaking with DualShockers recently, Game Director Hajime Tabata revealed that Final Fantasy XV had recouped its development costs on day one, six million.
In the same frame of time, there were supposed to be "Final Fantasy Versus XIII" and "Final Fantasy XV" as 2 separate games.
But game goes developement hell and both fusioned, so Square Enix lost a significant amount of money not getting the sales of 1 of those games, but still paying the same developement costs of all these timeframe of 10 years.
The game sold good, but i dont think at all that square enix is thrilled of all this versus XIII saga at all.
ehh... i wouldnt say that when they totally skipped the Switch that was probably the place where the P5R port sold the most. Maybe MS just paid Sega and didnt pay SE
Still pretty far behind VII.
And X if you include the HD Collection sales.
Or maybe it was not true that switch was the platform where it sold the most. Even with the hypothetical phrasing is a bold claim considering P3Re and Methapor are not currently announced for switch
EDIT: Adding more context to what I said, I do believe those two games are coming to Nintendo consoles, probably they are waiting the announcement of the new console
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This data is useless without digital. Jedi Survivor had a 45% drop in physical sales in the UK compared to Jedi Fallen Survivor but sales were actually up 30% when accounting for digital.
And that's a game that came out in 2019 instead of 2016.
And that's a game that came out in 2019 instead of 2016.
Yeah this thread is stupid. We're missing like 70% of the data.
Claiming physical sales data is "useless" is just as incorrect as claiming this means FF is doomed. Physical sales represent an increasingly small percentage of the total market, yes, but there is value to be gained by making extrapolations and comparisons with other modern game sales and series sales. Pretty much the entire field of economics is built on these principles.
Ultimately, it's far too early to proclaim whether FF16 is a "success" or not, but these early numbers strongly suggest that the series is also not seeing the type of strong growth that several other JP series (Zelda, RE, Souls, etc) are currently experiencing.
Ultimately, it's far too early to proclaim whether FF16 is a "success" or not, but these early numbers strongly suggest that the series is also not seeing the type of strong growth that several other JP series (Zelda, RE, Souls, etc) are currently experiencing.
The series constantly reinventing itself with each new entry, the fact that we have to wait 6-7 years between each new entry, and the fact that XIII and XV disappointed a lot of people, it's no wonder the franchise has fallen off in terms of sales. I thought it was very eye opening FFXVI got such low views on their trailers. I think it was always expected XVI would not do great numbers launch week. It NEEDED to have great reviews and word of mouth. While it got a respectable 88 on MC, impressions from fans online have been as divisive as XIII and XV. If it doesn't have good word of mouth, it's not gonna leg out.
I know Yoshi-P has his 18 month plan when it comes to long term sales, but I think the problems people have with XVI aren't going to be fixed over the new 6 - 9 months with quality of life patches.
1. Almost a decade of hype built up towards XV
2. Digital sales overtaking physical
3. Console exclusive
4. Next Gen exclusive when a lot of people are broke
5. Honestly I don't think any of the trailers for XVI were that enticing to people not already invested, it was mostly "check out these summons".
I'm not surprised.
Hope the game does well overall but I guess we'll find out.
2. Digital sales overtaking physical
3. Console exclusive
4. Next Gen exclusive when a lot of people are broke
5. Honestly I don't think any of the trailers for XVI were that enticing to people not already invested, it was mostly "check out these summons".
I'm not surprised.
Hope the game does well overall but I guess we'll find out.
Imma also leave my piece here:Yeah I'm not saying it's the most successful one overall. But people in this thread are acting like it was some mega catastrophic failure like FF Spirits Within or something. It made profit after day one. It sold 10 million copies lifetime. That's very good for FF. Like people keep pushing their dislike of FFXV over the factual success about FFXV
Final Fantasy XV Was Profitable After Its First Day - PlayStation LifeStyle
Speaking with DualShockers recently, Game Director Hajime Tabata revealed that Final Fantasy XV had recouped its development costs on day one, six million.
Imran Khan: Square Enix "slightly panicking" over Final Fantasy XVI pre-orders, tracking below Final Fantasy XV
Yeah nah, this thread ain't it. I'll even go a step further for FFXV in particular. Besides factually reviewing well day one along with it's Definitive Edition on PC sitting at an 85 metascore by a +4 point growth, prior to FFVII Remake, the game post-launch earned not only the highest GOTY...
www.resetera.com
Preach it. The ffxv takes usually boil down to "I hate the game it's shit so fuck facts"Yeah I'm not saying it's the most successful one overall. But people in this thread are acting like it was some mega catastrophic failure like FF Spirits Within or something. It made profit after day one. It sold 10 million copies lifetime. That's very good for FF. Like people keep pushing their dislike of FFXV over the factual success about FFXV
Final Fantasy XV Was Profitable After Its First Day - PlayStation LifeStyle
Speaking with DualShockers recently, Game Director Hajime Tabata revealed that Final Fantasy XV had recouped its development costs on day one, six million.
Yeah. I'm skeptical of the sales plan as well.
The series reinventing itself has been a part of it's identity for 20 years now, even longer if you just take setting into account, but I really don't think it's viable anymore.
Every reinvention pisses off more fans, and requires every game to be completely built from the ground up as if it were a new IP. I just don't think that's viable for a franchise anymore. You have to have some base to build and improve on. Especially for the Final Fantasy teams, who all have great strengths but noticable weaknesses as well.
They've got something here that's somewhat divisive but is also critically well received. Build on what works with it, toss it correct the things that don't. This team can reach that 90+ threshold (hell, if XVI's front half were as strong as it's back half, I bet it would have), but I don't know if the series ever will if they start back from zero every time.
There is a game somewhere out there in the aether that marries the best aspects of XIV, XV, XVI and VIIR and it's the new formula that future FF games should build on going forward.
Back in the day you could go from FFIII-FFVI and you knew what kind of game you were getting. Same for FFVII-FFIX for the most part. From X onward is where they started to make major shifts in direction for each entry and yes, that's not as viable now that it takes 5-6 years for each game as opposed to getting a new one every 1-2 years like we used to.
I agree they kind of need to stick to something and build on it instead of throwing the baby out with the bathwater like they have been over the last couple of decades.
yup. specifically the "FF shouldnt do this" when they did it and it worked, and sold a lot
hell, that's essentially what zelda did right. found a new formula with botw and they are gonna stick with it for several years still
But i was told the Xbox Sales of FF XV and all the japanese games were very bad, that's the reason japanese companies skip the platform.
/s
I mean, I'm sure the game has sold very well when you take digital into account, but the selfish part of me would prefer to see FFXV do better just because it's much more of my style of Final Fantasy in tone, art direction, and character design than FFXVI is.
XV's issues be damned, I really loved that game.
XV's issues be damned, I really loved that game.
Yeah, I've mentioned it before and while things aren't as bad as where Zelda was getting with Skyward Sword, FF as a brand is in a similar place to where Zelda was prior to BOTW.
Both things can be true: XV releasing on Xbox and PS4 can help its opening week numbers, even if it goes on to sell far less than PS4.
Yeah, FFIV-IX is just a legendary run of game and they're all very similar gameplay-wise. The differences are the story, setting, and character development systems. But the world map -> explorable area/town -> ATB battle system gameplay was consistent throughout. And they were coming out regularly! Though of course game development in general takes much more time nowadays.
I'm not saying FF needs to go back to that (I actually think going backwards would be a bad thing) but they need to iterate on what they've got.
I know its cliche, I always think of the Souls series in this way. They started with a formula, and they iterated on that formula for ten years, and the series went from a small, niche thing to a massive franchise with a fanbase that helped meme Elden Ring to 15 million sales. Final Fantasy needs that, and if that means a few entries of lower sales (and even maybe slightly lower budget) while they build their base up, I think that's maybe worth it.
Yeah the narrative that FF completely reinvents itself with every entry is not true, just the most recent games have been big shifts that may look unrecognizable to the casual viewer. Many long time fans appreciate the sense of consistency you get despite these changes, while a lot of people also decry each new game as "not my FF" or argue that entries like XI and XIV somehow don't count as mainline games.
I think SE knew this game wasn't going to do BOTW numbers or something but they're hoping to build a new foundation that they can build on. And I don't necessarily think that means every game going forward is going to play like XVI does, just that we're going to see some more consistency going forward again. Not that I think SE will just be "safe" with FF going forward, just that they're going to start iterating more instead of trying to give people the impression that XVII and XVIII are going to be entirely different games. At least, I think that's the key to success.
Personally, I think the big difference is that the Zelda team always demonstrated far superior game design ability, but had just not truly hit it big in sales appeal.
Final Fantasy teams are good, but they're now going to have to compete with "gameplay first" studios entering the action RPG space (Guerilla, SSM, Capcom, Nintendo, FROM, Respawn, etc). If you're not a gameplay first dev, you typically focus on pushing the RPG side if you want sales - writing, quest design, exploration design like CD Project Red or Bethesda. I don't see SQEX planning for success in either area. Their main strength is art design, cinematic presentation, music right now and they're not really making top tier competitive products in either the gameplay side or the RPG side for their mainline entries. They're going to have to strategically pick one and I think it's not the gameplay side. And we've never really seen top tier quest design from SQEX either honestly. They just tried hiring western writers for Forspoken and it didn't work too well, and they hired a Capcom dev for XVI and it's definitely progress but still has some simplicity issues.
2019 >> 2016 though. And, in case you missed it, Jedi Survivor actually had a pretty big increase.