Square Enix’s Teams Will Work From Home on Live Service and Upcoming Games

Square Enix has issued an update on its response to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic spreading around the world. The Square Enix Americas and Europe CEO, Phil Rogers, put out a prepared statement going over measures that are being taken to protect employees and continue work on upcoming games. Essentially, this means teams worldwide are all now working from home going forward.

In his notice, Rogers was a bit more specific about what Square Enix employees will be preparing while working from home. He confirmed that titles that are considered live service games, which would likely include Final Fantasy XIV, will e supported. New titles in the works remain in development. Final Fantasy VII Remake will ship as planned, though physical copies could be delayed. There will also be a digital showcase since E3 2020 was canceled.

Here is Rogers’ full message from the official website.

Like everyone around the world, our Square Enix team is bonding together worldwide to support each other, our families, our friends, and certainly our passionate community in these incredibly challenging times.

While the circumstances regarding the COVID-19 pandemic continue to evolve, we wanted to update you on the steps we’ve taken to ensure the health and well-being of our employees and their families, maintain our online services, and reassure you on our upcoming slate of exciting games.

We have been following the health and safety guidelines set forth by regional governmental health officials over recent months and in February, we restricted domestic and International business travel and began to limit visitors to our offices and studios.

At the same time, we began working across the Square Enix organization in Asia, Europe and the Americas to prepare for employees to work from home. Our IT teams increased our remote working systems, including the deployment of VPN and technology upgrades that enable remote working for our studio, development and business operations.

We have now implemented work-from-home policies across all locations and in cases where remote working isn’t possible, we have reduced office density and introduced staggered work times, especially to avoid peak consumer rush hours.

In addition to ensuring the health and well-being of our employees, we remain committed to delivering epic gameplay experiences for our players. Despite the changing work landscape, our development studios remain committed to supporting our live service games and working on our upcoming releases. While some game-related events have been cancelled, we are building out plans for a digital showcase where we can share news with you about those titles in the near future.

We know that many of our fans are looking forward to the upcoming release of Final Fantasy VII Remake, and we want to reassure everyone that we are still moving forward with an April 10 release date. While our goal is to ensure that everyone can play the game on day one, it is increasingly likely that deliveries may be affected in select markets due to supply chain disruptions and potential brick-and-mortar retail closures resulting from governmental quarantine policies.

We are in constant contact with our distribution and retail partners and are actively monitoring the situation for distribution of Final Fantasy VII Remake. As we receive more information about specific country-level distribution details, we will update you. We appreciate your patience and understanding as the situation develops over the coming days and weeks.

There is no question that these are uncertain times. While we don’t know how long these measures will remain in effect, we want to reassure gamers that we will do everything in our power to keep you entertained and connected with your friends across the globe as we work through these challenging times together.

Final Fantasy VII Remake will be released on April 10, 2020 on the PlayStation 4.