Square Enix Slashes Workforce, As Company Puts Faith In A.I. Quality Assurance

2025 has been a roller coaster year for Square Enix. The game publisher/producer of flagship games such as the Kingdom Hearts franchise and Dragon Quest has reduced their workforce in the American and European regions to focus more on development back in Japan, stated in a presentation last Thursday. This work consolidation will affect around 100 people across their UK divisions. The number affecting US employees remains unknown, as of this writing.

The greater part of Square Enix's restructuring is to further place utilization in A.I. to takeover more than half of quality assurance, citing productivity boosts. This will lead to generative A.I. heading 70% of QA and debugging roles for video game development by the end of 2027.

"We are reorganizing our operations in North America and Europe to strengthen our development structure and to drive a globally integrated marketing strategy," Square Enix said, in a statement shared with IGN. "This was an extremely difficult decision, made following careful consideration and analysis by our leadership, in order to best position the Group’s long-term growth.

We extend our heartfelt gratitude to the talented team members who will be departing the company for their significant contributions to Square Enix. During this period of transition, we remain committed to treating each individual with the utmost respect and providing extensive support throughout this process."

While other Japanese publishers and holdings companies have avoided a full commitment to the prospects of generative A.I., Square Enix is on record for expressing an increasingly aggressive stance in utilizing A.I. tools and resources. They have a division exclusively dedicated with the development and investment in NFT and Blockchain video games. Symbiogenesis was an Ethereum-based game released in 2023, leading to dismal results, and the game was shut down in July 2025. This follows many other shortcomings that have come from under the Square Enix umbrella. Foamstars saw its final season finish up after an unimpressive run. The action game Forespoken cost a reported $100 million plus to develop, and failed to meet its projections.

Even with the popularity of the Final Fantasy franchise, Dragon Quest, and Kingdom Hearts, Square Enix's high operating costs has seen decreasing returns. From charging a higher than normal cost for their HD Pixel remasters of classic Final Fantasy games, to selling off intellectual properties following poor mismanagement (I/O Interactive reacquiring the distribution rights to the Hitman series and selling a portion of Crystal Dynamics and Tomb Raider to Embracer Group for the almost the same cost they initially bought it for), Square Enix's restructuring seems more focused on saving a penny and chasing trends, rather than taking a risk on true innovation in their software. If the trend of replacing human workers with A.I. increases, this will be bleak for the gaming environment on the mainstream.

SOURCES: IGN