Square Enix promises updates and fixes for Chocobo GP after heavy fan-backlash

After the disaster that was Chocobo GP's launch, publisher Square Enix has come under fire for the tasteless manner in which they handled the game.

The Japanese publisher elaborated on the current monetization, content and design issues that the Final Fantasy racing spinoff is being harshly criticized for, promising tweaks to improve the experience of players.

This was first relayed to the Japanese audience on Twitter. Chocobo GP's producer Hironori Okayama apologized to fans in the above depicted extensive letter.

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Square Enix highlights improvements to come for Chocobo GP

The content was translated by Reddit user Sat-AM for the general audience. The gist of Chocobo GP's changes are as follows:

1. They're aware of and working on fixing the online issues.
2. They sent out 500 Mythril and lowered EXP requirements on the pass as an apology to players, meaning the lowered EXP requirement may not be how they do future passes. If you had enough EXP to be at a higher level, you were automatically leveled up.
3. Major updates and changes will come with season changes, so there will likely be no future adjustments for season 1.
4. Future seasons will include 2 new characters (1 on the pass and 1 for gil).
5. "Items added to the Gil Shop will be added each time the season is repeated," sounds like they'll be keeping Gil-bought characters in the Gil Shop for future seasons, but it could also mean that they are planning to repeat seasons eventually.
6. Characters on the pass may be available to be purchased "directly" with mythril or gil after the pass has been run.
7. New courses will be released for players on both the full and lite versions in Season 2.
8. More mythril shop items (costumes and BGM tracks) are coming mid-season.
9. Currently, Mythril can only be obtained via login reward, but starting in Season 2, it will also be a pass reward.
10. Balance changes are coming in Season 2, including changes to characters and base mechanics. They're not touching anything before then unless it's broken enough to need an immediate fix.
11. The director says that they are taking player feedback about DLC/microtransactions into account when planning for future updates.
12. They seem to primarily be concerned with the average player being able to get to level 100 (out of 200) over the course of a 2-month pass.
13. Current EXP gain is balanced so that players with a 1:1 win/lose ratio in GP mode will receive roughly 1 level per GP mode run with the stickers provided by the pass. The line after this ("In this way, our new basic policy is to create an environment in which it is easy to obtain additional characters simply by purchasing the product version") implies that they essentially find this suitable, and may be keeping the current EXP gain rates for the pass.
14. More cosmetic/BGM sorts of things will be coming to the Mythril shop and the pass as high-level rewards.
15. Changes being made to the Lite version are "to make it easier for video distributors to hold events," so this might be indicating that they may be allowing Lite players to access the host's roster, as "events" is probably in reference to tournaments. It may also, however, be in reference to allowing non-GP online play, or something else entirely.

All-in-all, Square Enix does seem to be actively paying attention to fans. But will this be enough? Looking at the rundown, they don't seem to be concerned with tackling player concerns about Chocobo GP, like the removal of the battle-pass in favor of a traditional kart-racing experience.

Add in the fact that the Switch has countless other arcade racers that offer a more polished and consumer-friendly experience than Chocobo GP, it will be tough, if not impossible, for Square Enix to win fans back.

Chocobo GP launched on March 10, 2022 and is available exclusively on Nintendo's current handheld.