Balan Company, a new development studio under Square Enix, will reveal a new action game this week.
The website (opens in new tab) for the studio was recently updated with a teaser for 10am PT / 1pm ET tomorrow, Thursday, July 23. That’s just one hour after the start of the upcoming Xbox Series X (opens in new tab) games showcase, so we’re expecting to see the Balan Company’s debut title as part of Microsoft’s show, perhaps as a post-show announcement. It’s hard to imagine Square Enix would push a standalone announcement for a new studio’s first game on a day where Xbox will inevitably dominate the news cycle.
Other than the circus-like atmosphere of the Balan Company’s website, we don’t really have any clues as to what the studio has in store, and even that may just be unrelated set-dressing. The “company” in the studio’s name refers to a group of performers rather than a business collective, so the Cirque du Soleil branding might just be their thing. And their website teaser simply reads: “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the show of wonders brought to you by the Balan Company. We thank you for your patience while we make preparations for the grand opening.”
We do know it’s an action game, though, since the Japanese Square Enix events Twitter (opens in new tab) specifically referred to Balan Company as “a new action game brand” (per Google Translate). Granted, an “action game” could be anything from a 2D action-platformer to a third-person brawler, so there’s no telling what we’ll see.
It’s safe to assume that the Balan Company’s new game will be a cross-gen or next-gen release, and it wouldn’t be Square Enix’s first next-gen announcement: it announced Project Athia (opens in new tab) (working title) earlier this year.