was a Japanese video game development studio and a subsidiary of

Square Enix is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational holding company, video game publisher and entertainment conglomerate. It releases role-playing video game, role-playing game franchises, such as ''Final Fantasy'', ''Dragon Quest'', and '' ...

. Originally known as Business Division 2, Luminous Productions was the development team responsible for '' Final Fantasy XV'' and was one of 12 Business Divisions (internal development and production divisions) that Square Enix had at the time before the company consolidated its development divisions in 2020. The current name and development structure of the studio was formed on 27 March 2018 as an external company. The aim of the company was to create AAA video games for a global audience using Square Enix's proprietary

Luminous Engine , originally called , is a multi-platform game engine developed and used internally by Square Enix and later on by Luminous Productions. The engine was developed for and targeted at eighth-generation hardware and DirectX 11-compatible platforms ...

. On 28 February 2023, Square Enix Holdings announced that on 1 May 2023, Luminous Productions would reorganize and merge with Square Enix Co. Ltd internally, citing the merging of the two would "enhance the Group's ability to develop HD games". In June 2023, it was noticed in CEDEC Awards that Luminous Productions was listed as Creative Business Unit II, the division at Square Enix responsible for the development and production of ''

Dragon Quest previously published as ''Dragon Warrior'' in North America until 2005, is a series of role-playing video games created by Japanese game designer Yuji Horii (Armor Project), character designer Akira Toriyama (Bird Studio), and composer Koi ...

'', ''

Nier ''Nier'' is an action role-playing video game developed by Cavia and published in 2010 by Square Enix for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. In Japan, the game was released as for the PlayStation 3 with a younger main character, while an alterna ...

'', ''

Bravely Default ''Bravely Default'', known in Japan as ''Bravely Default: Flying Fairy'', is a 2012 role-playing video game developed by Silicon Studio and published by Square Enix for the Nintendo 3DS. It was originally released in 2012 and later rereleased ...

'' and '' Octopath Traveler'' franchises, showing that the studio was merged under this specific division at the company.

History

Formation

Luminous Productions was originally assembled from employees working on '' Final Fantasy XV''. While forming a new internal studio from existing ones is common worldwide, it is uncommon in Japan. Since the studio pulled in so many who were working on ''Final Fantasy XV'', Luminous Productions helped with the game alongside their new project. So many were taken from the internal development division Business Division 2 that created ''Final Fantasy XV'' that Square Enix stated that it functionally "no longer exists".

Focus

Its initial goal was to work on video games and "other entertainment content ic, but later that year the studio was refocused on just making games, causing to report a thirty-three million dollar loss for the half-year ending on 30 September 2018. The new studio's leader and ''Final Fantasy XV'' director Hajime Tabata left Luminous Productions and Square Enix around the same time, and planned future content for ''Final Fantasy XV'' was also cancelled. President of Square Enix Yosuke Matsuda clarified that the studio would be a "fusion of cutting-edge technology and art". Resources shifted to the then-unannounced '' Forspoken'' (initially dubbed ''Project Athia''), with the studio continuing to use the

. The game's protagonist, Alfre "Frey" Holland ( Ella Balinska), is a young woman who uses magical powers to survive in a fantasy world. According to director Takeshi Aramaki, the gameplay is focused on terrain traversal speed and fluidity. Square Enix also described the game as a "narrative-driven adventure". It was released in 2023 for

Microsoft Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

and

PlayStation 5 The PlayStation 5 (PS5) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment. It was announced as the successor to the PlayStation 4 in April 2019, was launched on November 12, 2020, in Australia, Japan, New Zealand, North ...

Research and development

In 2018, preparations were made to launch a new game, and active development began in 2019. In September 2019, the team released a video called ''Back Stage'' on their website to demonstrate the work they were doing with an advanced form of ray tracing they call ''

path tracing Path tracing is a rendering algorithm in computer graphics that Simulation, simulates how light interacts with Physical object, objects, voxels, and Volumetric_path_tracing, participating media to generate realistic (''physically plausible'') R ...

''. Several projects are in production, including research and engine development. In terms of the number of projects, we have several production lines in motion, including engine development and R&D. Of the 130 employees, approximately 20 are not Japanese, and the studio uses an in-house translator so that the studio can operate globally. A focus of the studio technologically is to not have in-game development and 3D cinematic teams working separately, but making a game that is entirely created in a cinematic mode.

Video games

References

External links

* {{Square Enix Square Enix Video game companies established in 2018 Japanese companies established in 2018 Defunct video game companies of Japan Video game development companies Video game companies disestablished in 2023 Japanese companies disestablished in 2023