Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy was met with strong reviews from across the industry when it was released in October 2021.
Despite that, however, it apparently didn’t deliver in terms of sales for Square Enix, with Representative Director Yosuke Matsuda saying it “undershot our initial expectations.” A new Eurogamer interview gets a bit of the developer’s side of the story, and talks about the future of Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy.
“I have no regrets. We did everything we could, but that’s the reality of the market… And let’s not forget it’s a new IP. Even though we say all ‘Guardians [of the Galaxy] are known’, it’s still a new IP [in the video game market]. It could be a lot of people don’t even know that the game is out yet, or they’re not sure exactly what it is,” says senior creative director Jean-Francois Dugas.
This isn’t the first time a game has failed to meet Square Enix’s expectations for sales. Despite selling 4.12 million, Square Enix called sales for Shadow of the Tomb Raider “weak,” and low sales for Deus Ex: Mankind Divided even put the entire franchise on hold.
Since it came out, Guardians of the Galaxy has been released on Xbox Game Pass, which opens it up to a whole new wave of players. Senior narrative director Mary DeMarle comments on this by saying, “What I love right now is that people, especially with Games Pass, are playing it, and they’re sharing the experience. We make games to touch people, we make games to hit an audience. And it’s great that it’s finding its audience, and it’s great that it keeps going forward.”
In terms of the future of Guardians of the Galaxy, the development team says it’s taking a break for now. “I will say that, working on the game, these characters became very dear to me and to the writing team. And we were sad to say goodbye when they were finished. But you know, now we’re seeing what happens out there in the world,” says DeMarle. Dugas adds to this by saying he “has ideas” about where things could go.
Still, the future of Guardians of the Galaxy will likely rely on Square Enix itself, and if it sees value in producing another game.
