History of One of the Biggest Gaming Company in the World, Square Enix

Square Enix, or officially, Square Enix Holdings Co., Ltd, is a giant multinational holding
company, headquartered at the Shinjuku Eastside Square Building in Shinjuku, Tokyo, famous
for producing entertainment media, especially games. Among gamers, this company is best
known to produce some of the most successful Japanese Role-Playing Games (JRPG), such as
Final Fantasy, NieR, Dragon Quest, Star Ocean, and Kingdom Hearts.
However, things were not always like they are today. Before April 2003, Square Enix was two
separate small and local companies, Enix ─which was established in 1975─ and Square –which
was established in 1983─, trying to meet a much narrower market’s demand and stay afloat.
Enix started out as Eidansha Boshu Service Center in 1975, founded by Yuji Horii and Koichi
Nakamura. It was not until August 1982 that the company finally changed its official name to
Enix Corporation. At that time, the Role-Playing Games (RPG) genre was dominated by
American developers with games like Ultima and Wizardy being impressive dungeon-crawlers
with no-so-impressive storylines. Enix strived to make RPG games with great storylines, likeable
characters, and amazing soundtracks, which was just what the local market demanded at that
time.
Enix went on to create Dragon Quest which was released on May 1986. It turned out to be a
massive success with more than one million copies sold and changed the world of JRPG forever.
With the success of the first installation of Dragon Quest series, of course Enix did not hesitate to
continue expanding the series. They continued to release other installations for the main plotline
as well as producing several spinoffs. Dragon Quest II, III and IV were released for Nintendo's
highly successful NES console. They were all released from 1987 to 1990. After that, they
continued to make Dragon Quest V and VI which were released on the SNES 1992 and 1995.
Enix also teamed up with several small but promising teams at that time, like Quintet and tri-Ace
which created what many considered as masterpieces at that time, Soul Blazer (1992) and Star
Ocean (1996), respectively. Soul Blazer was successful enough to be made into a trilogy,
consisting of Soul Blazer, Illusion of Gaia, and Terranigma, while Star Ocean series is still going
well to this day with the last installation being Star Ocean: The Divine Force which was release
on October 27, 2022.
At this point, Enix was also busy publishing games for Sony and Nintendo, which in turn helped
rising their stock value. With all this success, by 1999, Enix was considered a powerful game
company based on its constantly growing stocks. An amazing milestone for Enix to get since the
first two decades of their career.
Despite how independently strong Enix had been going up to this point, the gaming world kept
on changing over time, new generation of consoles kept on popping up and it became one of the
reasons why making games became more and more difficult and expensive, even for Enix. Enix
got into trouble when they were trying to release Dragon Quest VII in North America. There was
a problem during the development phase that made delay become inevitable. More time needed
to release the game means extra budget spent. In 2002, tri-Ace’s attempt to begin developing
Star Ocean 3 needed a bigger budget because of lots of voice overs, facial expressions, and
overall very detailed graphics they wanted to put in the game in order to make the game more
marketable among the constantly growing world of JRPGs.

On the other hand, Square Co., Ltd was founded in 1983 by Masafumi Miyamoto. The company
mostly developed games for Nintendo Entertainment System and MSX computer. Square’s early
games were the opposite of successful. King's Knight, their vertical story shooter game from
1985, was considered horrible and their 3D World Runner, which was released in 1987, did not
sell well.
Square was on the verge of bankruptcy when they developed Final Fantasy, a JRPG which was
heavily inspired by Enix’s Dragon Quest. Final Fantasy was released on December 18, 1987
under the direction of Hironobu Sakaguchi and it turned out to be a big hit. It was really
successful that the game even got a worldwide release.
From that point on, they continued to expand Final Fantasy as a series and it became the most
brilliant thing Square had ever created, stabilizing their reputation as a good JRPG creator.
Square then sought to make more JRPGs, they released Romancing SaGa and Seiken Densetsu
in 1991, Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest in 1992, Chrono Trigger and Front Mission in 1995,
Bahamut Lagoon and Super Mario RPG in 1996, the list went on.
Square’s success did not stop there. In 1997, they released the fan-favourite Final Fantasy VII.
With a lot of beautiful cinematic sequences to make the story felt alive, a stylistic point-of-view,
and a modern cyberpunk setting, Final Fantasy VII was beloved by gamers and it still is to this
day. Final Fantasy VII forever changed the following Final Fantasy installations with later
games’ style of storytelling still inspired by Final Fantasy VII’s.
Still in 1997, they also released non-JRPGs, like Einhänder, which was a horizontal shoot-em-up
game. In this year, they also released the fighting games, Bushido Blade and Tobal No.1. They
continued to make JRPGs in the following year, such as Xenogears, Parasite Eve, Final Fantasy
Tactics in 1998; Final Fantasy VIII and Chrono Cross in 1999; as well as Final Fantasy IX and
Vagrant Story in 2000.
Being the creators of great JRPGs, Enix and Square were rivals back then but around the year
2000, they started talking about the possibility of them merging. But with console generation
changed from the 32/64-bit generation to the 128-bit generation, their non-RPG PS2 games not
performing well in the market, and their Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within flopped in the box
office in 2001, Square faced yet another financial problem which made Enix hesitate proceeding
with the merger. Square proceeded to strike another jackpot with their Final Fantasy X which
was released in 2001. Their Kingdom Hearts also did well in the market. All of these finally
made both Enix and Square resumed their talk about the merger and succeeded in doing so in
April 2003. They became one under the name Square Enix Co., Ltd.
Square Enix continued to grow and gain new subsidiary companies and branches. Square Enix
China was launched in 2005 followed by Square Enix Europe, Square Enix Montreal, and Square
Enix USA. Square Enix is still growing and expanding to this day. They work with many
Western companies. For example, Square Enix is responsible for publishing Ubisoft titles in
Japan. One of them was Assassin’s Creed, which turned out to be a big hit. Square Enix also
makes merchandise for other companies’ titles, such as Mass Effect and Halo. Square Enix also
works with companies like Viz Media and Funimation Entertainment to publish manga and
anime, such as Fullmetal Alchemist and Soul Eater.
In 2009, Square Enix purchased Eidos and together with Square Enix Europe, they have been
publishing games, such as Tomb Raider, Hitman, and Deus Ex in Europe. In 2017, Square Enix
stroke yet another big success with NieR: Automata, an action-RPG with hack-and-slash
mechanics and gorgeous, orchestral soundtracks. This led to them producing several books
regarding NieR: Automata’s lore and holding several concerts. The less-known prequel to NieR:
Automata, NieR Replicant was remastered thanks to this success. The remastered version, NieR
Replicant ver.1.22474487139..., was released in 2021 which also turned out to be yet another big
hit in the gaming world.
Square Enix is still expanding their wings to produce more than just JRPGs, more than just Final
Fantasy. Even though JRPGs were what made them famous in the first place, Square Enix does
not want to limit their potential. Square Enix proceeds to expand their wings in the world of
entertainment media, especially games, worldwide.