Presentation
Behind a large part of modern Japanese RPG history, two names keep coming up: Square and Enix.
For a long time, they move forward separately.
Enix published Dragon Quest in 1986.
Square launched Final Fantasy the following year.
The two series became institutions, but they developed almost two opposite ways of making a franchise last. Dragon Quest built its strength in continuity. Final Fantasy progressively made reinvention a tradition.
On April 1, 2003, the two companies merged.
Square Enix was born from this meeting.
This origin explains why the company is hard to sum up with a single creative formula. Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Kingdom Hearts, SaGa, Mana, NieR, or Octopath Traveler share neither the same aesthetic nor the same way of conceiving RPGs.
Coherence lies elsewhere.
Square Enix must constantly decide what deserves to be preserved, what must evolve, and what sometimes needs to be almost entirely rebuilt.
This question goes beyond video games.
The group also carries a major publishing activity around manga, magazines, books, and digital content. Its properties then circulate toward animation, music, merchandise, and other forms of entertainment.
Square Enix therefore does not only manage games.
It manages an extremely vast cultural heritage, spread across several media and several generations of audience.
This richness is its strength.
It also creates its main problem: not all properties can receive the same response.
Some franchises live through fidelity.
Others through change.
Some demand a huge project.
Others a remake, a new aesthetic, or simply time.
Square Enix is therefore less interesting as a "studio with a touch" than as a house tasked with advancing several traditions without treating them as if they were identical.
History
Before 2003: Square and Enix build two traditions
The history of Square Enix begins well before its official creation.
The company that would become Enix Corporation goes back to the 1970s and adopted the name Enix in 1982.
Square Co., Ltd. was founded in 1986.
The same year, Enix published the first Dragon Quest.
In 1987, Square launched Final Fantasy.
These two franchises would structure much of the future group's identity.
Dragon Quest gradually built very strong continuity around its codes, its monsters, its music, and a sought-after familiarity.
Final Fantasy followed an almost opposite logic: each main installment can change world, characters, system, and technological ambition.
One of Square Enix's future strengths will be precisely having to make these two philosophies coexist.
2002-2003: Kingdom Hearts then the merger
Before the merger, Kingdom Hearts appeared in 2002 as a collaboration between Square and Disney.
The project mixes original characters, Disney universes, and several elements associated with Final Fantasy.
It already shows that a property can be born from the crossing of several cultures while developing a personality strong enough to exist on its own.
On April 1, 2003, Square and Enix officially merged.
The new company now brought together under one name two major traditions of Japanese RPGs.
The merger did not make them identical.
It instead forced Square Enix to become a house wide enough to accept several definitions of the same genre.
2005-2009: becoming a group larger than Japanese RPGs
In 2005, Square Enix acquired Taito.
The operation notably added an important heritage linked to arcades and properties like Space Invaders.
In 2008, the organization was restructured around Square Enix Holdings, while a new Square Enix Co., Ltd. took over the main operational activities.
The following year, the group acquired Eidos plc.
The operation brought several major Western studios and properties, notably around Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, Hitman, Thief, or Legacy of Kain.
Square Enix then changed international scale.
It no longer just published Japanese productions worldwide.
It had to directly organize development cultures located in several regions and coming from very different histories.
This expansion increased its influence.
It also increased the group's complexity.
Final Fantasy XIV: knowing how to rebuild rather than protect failure
One of the most revealing episodes in Square Enix's modern history concerns Final Fantasy XIV.
The first version of the MMO encountered serious difficulties.
The company could have progressively abandoned it.
It instead chose a profound reconstruction.
Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn officially started its service on August 27, 2013.
The project then became one of the group's lasting pillars.
This case is particularly important because it shows a different form of fidelity.
Protecting a franchise does not always mean maintaining what exists.
Sometimes, you have to recognize that the current form no longer works and accept rebuilding to save what deserves to continue.
Modernizing heritage without choosing between copy and erasure
Square Enix also developed other ways of working with its past.
The HD-2D style, notably associated with Octopath Traveler and then with various remakes, proposes an intermediate path between historical reproduction and total modernization.
Pixel art remains visible.
Scenery, lighting, and effects use contemporary techniques.
The old visual language is therefore not hidden.
It becomes the material of modernization.
Other projects choose different answers.
Final Fantasy VII Remake rebuilds a much older work much more broadly.
Some titles are remastered.
Others are simply made accessible again.
Heritage therefore does not impose a single method.
The real question is to know which part of the memory must survive.
2022: reducing the Western perimeter
In 2022, Square Enix sold Crystal Dynamics, Eidos-Montréal, and Square Enix Montréal to the Embracer Group with several associated properties.
The transaction closed an important period opened with the 2009 acquisition of Eidos.
The group did not stop being international.
But it acknowledged that an expansion is not automatically a success simply because it increases the number of studios and franchises owned.
This decision marked a refocusing.
It above all reminds us that a large catalog constantly forces decisions about what still belongs to the company's future project.
From 2024: selecting more
Square Enix formalizes from 2024 a new strategy presented under the name Reboots and Awakens.
The group notably wants to better organize development, more strictly select its projects, strengthen global publishing, and increase the value of its existing properties.
A more affirmed multiplatform strategy accompanies this evolution.
The change answers a simple reality: major productions demand more time, more resources, and more investment.
Owning many properties therefore no longer has automatic value.
One must decide which really deserve a major project, which can exist in another form, and which might be better off waiting.
Square Enix thus enters a period where its main challenge is no longer only to exploit an immense heritage.
It is to choose more clearly what to do with it.
What Sets It Apart
Two almost opposite traditions under the same roof
Square Enix's singularity is already inscribed in its name.
Square + Enix.
Dragon Quest maintains strong continuity.
Final Fantasy often makes change an essential component of its identity.
The first reassures largely through what it keeps.
The second regularly attracts through what it accepts transforming.
Square Enix must therefore know how to recognize what kind of fidelity each series demands.
A good decision for Final Fantasy can be a bad decision for Dragon Quest.
This is precisely what prevents reducing the company to a single formula.
RPG as territory rather than fixed genre
Despite the group's diversity, RPG remains at the heart of its identity.
But Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, SaGa, Mana, Kingdom Hearts, NieR, or Octopath Traveler do not defend a single definition of the genre.
Turn-based, action, MMO, pixel art, spectacular staging, and more experimental structures coexist.
Square Enix therefore looks less like the guardian of a formula than the guardian of a vast territory of Japanese RPG in which several schools keep evolving.
A heritage that demands several answers
A company with that many collective memories cannot modernize its entire catalog the same way.
The remake is only one possible answer.
A game can be remastered, rebuilt, reissued, rendered in another style, or simply left alone until a real idea appears.
HD-2D particularly illustrates this diversity of answers: it seeks to modernize an old feeling without pretending that this oldness must be erased.
Heritage becomes interesting when it remains creative material rather than a stock of famous brands.
Properties that circulate between several media
Square Enix is not limited to video games.
Manga, magazines, books, digital content, music, animation, merchandise, and other collaborations are part of its activity.
A property can therefore change medium without necessarily losing its identity.
This circulation gives the group a particular role.
It does not just make works.
It organizes universes able to meet their audience through several doors.
Knowing when the structure itself must change
Square Enix's history is also one of merger, acquisitions, restructurings, creation of a holding, Western expansion, then sale of several studios.
This instability is not always elegant.
It nonetheless shows an important reality: a cultural group of this size must regularly reassess its own organization.
Final Fantasy XIV provides a creative version of the same principle.
When a structure no longer works, protecting the existing can become more dangerous than rebuilding it.
Continuity is therefore not always synonymous with immobility.
At Square Enix, it often depends on the ability to change enough to still pass on what matters.
Good to Know
- Square Enix was officially born on April 1, 2003 from the merger of Square Co., Ltd. and Enix Corporation.
- Dragon Quest appeared in 1986 and Final Fantasy in 1987.
- Kingdom Hearts began in 2002, before the Square-Enix merger.
- Taito joined the group in 2005.
- In 2008, the organization was restructured around Square Enix Holdings and the operational company Square Enix Co., Ltd.
- Square Enix acquired Eidos in 2009, greatly expanding its Western presence.
- Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn launched its service on August 27, 2013 after a fundamental reconstruction of the original MMO.
- Crystal Dynamics, Eidos-Montréal, and Square Enix Montréal were sold to the Embracer Group in 2022, with several associated properties.
- Square Enix also carries a major activity in manga, magazine, book, and digital content publishing.
- From 2024, the group entered a new strategic phase around project selection, global publishing, intellectual properties, and a more affirmed multiplatform approach.