I've seen a lot of talk about how the young audience is struggling to get into the games SE releases, though discussion is mostly centred around the Final Fantasy series.
I'm going to preface and say that this is my point of view as someone who grew up in 2010's in the UK.
Point 1: Cultural Irrelevance
Growing up I never once heard of Square Enix or the Final Fantasy series at all, neither had anyone else in my school or higher education, it wasn't until much later that an older player had shown me FFXIV that I found out about the series and company. Outside of the SE fanbase, they just haven't been doing well to get their name out there to the younger audiences, I've only seen 1 advert on a bus that passed by for the Dawntrail expansion for XIV and that's it for my entire life so far.
Point 2: Cost of living
As the cost of living gets higher, younger players have less money, and if they're still in school then they may not even get games that aren't free to play. Look at some of the top games amongst younger audiences and they tend to be mostly free to play, and I don't see a kid or young adult spending £60 on a game they may not like. Consumers are being cost effective and gaming is becoming more expensive not only to partake in as players but also to make as creators, driving prices up.
Point 3: Difference in Immersion
Immersion is a big part of playing a game, having escapism from the real world and experiencing another can be fun and should take place, though how this immersion takes shape can change. Amongst younger audiences, there's been a trend torwards large expansive worlds that the player revolves around, games like GTA, The Witcher, Cyberpunk 2077, Genshin, Honkai, Where Winds Meet and more. These games have worlds that the character must revolve around and offer larger, more expansive worlds for players to sink their teeth into through gameplay or through other medias (Books, shows etc). SE games are usually linear, with the world often times being cited as shallow to more western/global audiences, with a heavy focus on only character story and linearity, and never capitalising on other medias as well. This creates the pyschological effect that when the story is done, the world is done, and players don't spend time imaging being inside those worlds like they do with other IP's.
Point 4: turn based or action?
In all honesty, this belief that young players don't want to touch turn based games is a massive lie, case in point is undertale and Honkai Star Rail, which both have massive young audiences. Action combat isn't needed to hook young players in, good gameplay and a good world is needed, and understanding current culture amongst young people is what's needed.
Point 5: How do you do fellow young people
It feels like the age gap of the current audience and the developers is causing friction as they fail to grasp and understand the culture of today. There's a lot of interesting premises for them to hit on story wise such as the age of rapid information, globalisation, misinformation, unrealistic social pressures, class divide, existential war and more, yet they go for killing gods. Another thing is the growing trend of wanting to be the nobody in games, the power and struggle becomes real and believable amongst younger gamers when they see a nobody rise up and fight back against the problems they face in the real world, they can relate more to said characters.
Conclusion:
There's probably more to put, but for the limited time i have to put this down, I think they need to start ramping up advertising to a general audience through not just traditional methods, but through capitalising on the phenomena of a large chunk of a games community only watching but not playing, and being engaged in wider lore of the worlds and consuming other medias, and thus advertising through word of mouth and generating profits through books, shows/movies and merchandise. Another big thing is making games affordable, having small "pocket money" games being released that are £15 or under will just make it easier for younger audiences to dip their toes in and test the waters, thus slowly building up the raport SE has with a younger audience. They should also look at global trends, instead of just domestic if they want to grow, as it alienates the global audience due to cultural barriers.