Square Enix games headed for Steam

By Robert Purchese Published 25 February, 2009

The Last Remnant will be first to emerge.

Valve has secured Square Enix's PC releases for sale on Steam.

The Last Remnant will be the first to appear on 9th April, and be joined over time by more Square Enix titles.

It's another feather in the western-expansion hat for the Japanese role-playing game specialist, which believes that multi-format, multi-region launches are the way forward.

Square Enix put its money where its mouth is earlier this month by offering a hefty 84 million pounds for Eidos, the company that owns the iconic Tomb Raider series.

Valve has now secured the catalogues of some of the world's biggest publishers for release on Steam. The most notable absence is EA, which is still soldiering on with its own digital delivery service.

The Last Remnant was confirmed for PC late last year and adds a choice of Japanese or English voice-overs, better character animations and the option for multiple leaders to form unions.

That, however, may not be enough to counter the average repitation of the action role-playing game.

Head over to our Xbox 360 review of The Last Remnant to find out why.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (15) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • giant_frying_pan #1 3 years ago

    "repitation"...

  • penhalion #2 3 years ago

    Why the heck do Square want to buy eidos?

    Surely they are capable of making a game like tomb raider or dirt if they really wanted to.

  • GamesConnoisseur #3 3 years ago

    SE offering on PC would indeed I believe be far more visually pleasing with the elimination of the dreaded texturing pop ins as too evident on X360.

  • paul_haine #4 3 years ago

    "Surely they are capable of making a game like tomb raider or dirt if they really wanted to."

    Yeah, but they need someone else to make the game while they make the lavish cut scenes featuring spiky-haired androgynous personality-free characters.

    They'll be gorgeous, mind.

  • TheMoonRat #5 3 years ago

    EA is on Steam... just not for europe :/

  • FogHeart #6 3 years ago

    ...just not for UK, Europe's got 'em!

    It's coming apparently, if posts on Valve's EA forum can be believed. They've missed out the UK on whoppers like Dead Space and Mirror's Edge, how long do they want to do that?

    Edit: Please insert obligatory statement about how smashing Valve are.
    Edited by 1 at 25/02/09 @ 17:32

  • hiddenranbir #7 3 years ago

    Wow more locked into Valve's steamworks?

    Why is Stardock's Impulse Reactor the only potential competitor?



  • Eraysor #8 3 years ago

    Isn't DIRT a Codemasters game?

    The more on Steam the better, I really like it.

  • hiddenranbir #9 3 years ago

    I fear a monopoly.

  • spudsbuckley #10 3 years ago

    Steam's great. No complaints here.

  • zisssou #11 3 years ago

    with steam also offering half price games like left 4 dead and now tf2. who needs to go into a shop and buy pc games?!

  • Darren #12 3 years ago

    You can download the PC demo of The Last Remnand now from:

    [link url=http:/ /www.gamershell.com/download_40086.shtml
    ]http://ww w.gamershell.com/download_40086...[/link]

    Since it uses the Unreal Engine 3, The Last Remnant runs better and smoother on the PC than it does on the 360 if you have a moderately powerful setup, and obviously looks sharper at resolutions above 1280x720. I didn't notice any performance hitches or framerate issues in the time I played it and the demo itself is very generous with two cities and three locations to explore although the cutscenes and quests have been removed. It basically just lets you sample the battles and talk to people in the cities. It also works perfectly with the 360 controller too using the same button mappings as the console version.

    I played the 360 version briefly before Christmas and I wasn't that impressed with it. The battle system is cool and exciting but it feels like it plays itself and you don't have much control. The story and characters were nothing exceptional either. For PC owners though this is probably something a bit different as Japanese RPGs are a bit of a rarity on that platform than they are on the consoles.

  • Daikon #13 3 years ago

    I'll pass on The Last Remnant...
    It would be nice to get the PC versions of Final Fantasy VII and VIII on Steam though.

  • Notez #14 3 years ago

    @Darren: "I played the 360 version briefly before Christmas and I wasn't that impressed with it. The battle system is cool and exciting but it feels like it plays itself and you don't have much control. The story and characters were nothing exceptional either."

    Yea, that pretty much sums up the beginning. BUT it does get more meaningful later on, when you have more control over the groups you set up and the difficulty of battles goes way up. There are some epic showdowns later on, which makes it a shame that some good 10 - 20 hours of the beginning can seem so bland.

  • sherpa1984 #15 3 years ago

    PLEASE JESUS LET THEM SELL THE PC VERSION OF FINAL FANTASY 7 FOR 5 QUID ON STEAM

    (I know Square-Enix != Square but fingers crossed)
    Edited by 1 at 26/02/09 @ 23:34