In the current fiscal year, Square Enix plans to restructure its Western publishing organisation fundamentally. Additionally, development activities will be concentrated in Japan, with AI also playing an important role.
Square Enix has announced a reorganisation of its overseas organisations. A Progress Report on the Medium-Term Business Plan states: "In the current fiscal year, a fundamental restructuring of the overseas publishing organization is being implemented with the aim of further strengthening global publishing capabilities and improving operational efficiency." The focus here is on lean, agile and multi-skilled teams.
The company is planning to reorganise the HD Games publishing organisation, reducing the number of divisions from eleven to four. Square Enix hopes to make annual cost savings of over 3 billion yen (~€16.9 million). Another excerpt from the Transformation Policy: "Integration of global strategy and data-related organizations under the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) to strengthen authority and fundamentally review business workflows, with the aim of enhancing data-driven digital marketing."
Furthermore, it was decided to close overseas development studios and consolidate development operations in Japan. The management of IPs, which were previously overseen by overseas development studios, will now be integrated globally. Currently, the Life is Strange, Outriders and Just Cause franchises are managed by Western studios.
When asked (IGN), the company responded as follows: "We are reorganizing our operations in North America and Europe to strengthen our development structure and to drive a globally integrated marketing strategy." VGC, in turn, claims to have learned from a person affected that nearly 140 jobs were “at risk” in the London office alone. That includes staff across IT, marketing, publishing, sales, QA, business planning, and more.
Square Enix: "Under the policy of shifting from quantity to quality, a selective and focused approach is being implemented. As a result of reviewing development titles and development structures in overseas operations, a restructuring expense of 11.8 billion yen [~€66.6 million] is expected to be recorded in the fiscal year ending March 2026."
The company announced its intention to promote the use of AI in Japan in the same document. The aim is to automate 70% of QA and debugging tasks in game development by the end of 2027. "Through the use of automation technology, we aim to improve the efficiency of QA operations and establish a competitive advantage in game development," says the publisher.
