Luminous Productions, the development team behind this year's strong middling title "Forspoken," is going to sleep quietly. In a tweet posted yesterday, the studio announced that it will "join Square Enix on May 1 to bring new and innovative gaming experiences to the world. In other words, Square Enix is being absorbed by its parent company and is no longer an independent entity.

For the next two months, until May 1, Luminous will be "fully focused on Forspoken" and is "currently working on previously announced patches to address overall game performance." Forspoken's previous patches (open in new tab) Given that some of them did not do much to optimize the game for some players, we hope that this last patch is a tremendous one. The studio also stated that Forspoken's next DLC, In Tanta We Trust, is "well on its way to a release this summer."

For obvious reasons, Luminous is trying to present this as a positive move for the company, but the statement released is somewhat dismal. When Luminous was founded, the announcement read, "The vision was to create a AAA game that blended technology and artistry to offer a completely new play experience. Having the opportunity to make that a reality is a dream come true." The company's opportunity to take on "Forspoken 2" is probably still a long way off.

Square Enix stated in its own announcement (open in new tab) about the merger that the decision was made to "further [strengthen] the competitiveness of the group's development studios," which was met with a major shrug from critics (open in new tab) and meme-based ridicule from the gaming community as a whole. It's hard not to think that this was encouraged by the modest response to Forspoken, which was the subject of meme-based ridicule from the entire gaming community (opens in new tab). Square Enix probably does not see much value in the studio's re-doing its own project.

There is no mention of what will happen to the studio's Luminous Engine, which was running both Force Poken and Final Fantasy 15. It would be surprising if Square Enix does not continue to use it where appropriate, but not all of the studio's computers will be incinerated.

So, bad news for those hoping for a "Forspoken" sequel. For our part, PCG's Molly Taylor scored the game a 65% in her review of Forspoken (opens in new tab), lamenting the "painfully basic" combat, "vapid gameplay objectives," and "turgid narrative."

While Forspoken had its good points, other Forspoken had its good points, but they didn't make up for the rest.