What Is Forspoken?
Forespoken is an action role-playing game (RPG) published by Square Enix and created by Luminous Productions. The game was originally called Project Athia, with the game’s real name being revealed alongside other things on their March 2021 live stream. The game is set for release on PC and PS5 on May 24, 2022.
Forspoken Game Preview
Will Forspoken be worth the wait? Here’s what we know so far about this upcoming game.
Story
The story of Forspoken follows Frey Holland, who’s transported to the world of Athia. She, however, doesn’t like to be isekai’d at all. In other words, she refuses to be transported to another world, and thus decides to try and find a way back home. Thanks to finding a sentient bracelet by the name of Cuff, she gains magical powers to aid her in her journey. That’s pretty much the premise of Forspoken — an isekai video game where the main character wants to return home. In Athia, she’ll meet several characters that will both help and hinder her journey. It also doesn’t help that Athia is in the middle of being ruled in a tyrannical manner by the Tantas. These are Tanta Sila and Tanta Prave, the Tantas of Strength and Justice respectively. Time will tell on how this story will play out when the game’s released.
Gameplay
Forespoken’s gameplay looks a lot like an acrobat or a parkour artist moving up and down various obstacles. The game puts a lot of focus on its traversal and the fluidity of movement. Above all else, the main character Frey can leap high into the air, dash across land and obstacles, and be an absolutely fast character in general. Think of her as the Flash — her traversal is this, in addition to added leaps, twirls, and other acrobatic stuff. Other than this, Forspoken is also an open-world action RPG. This means that the game will be set in an open world where Frey can explore wherever she wishes so long as she has the abilities to do so. In addition to this, there’s also the implication of a leveling and upgrade system. Forspoken gives Frey a few upgrades to spice up her abilities and attacks. To get these upgrades, though, she has to level up. Killing enemies is a staple of getting more experience, but there’s no confirmation on what other ways the player can do to gain EXP. But with the addition of the game being an open-world, players might also gain EXP from discovering new locales, items, materials, and more. Other than this, there’s also no indication of any crafting system. Players can do Fast Travel, though the developers stated that they want players to explore the game’s world through the various movement options given to them.
Combat and Controls
Combat in Forspoken is all focused on Frey’s magical abilities. Specifically, the abilities are given to her by the magical cuff attached to her right hand. This allows her to do a variety of different things in both traversal and combat. In terms of traversal, Forspoken ensures that Frey will have maximum mobility when she’s in the middle of a fight. However, when casting abilities and spells, she does stop for a brief moment to do the casting. Keep this in mind as you’re trying to destroy the myriad of enemies that Athia will throw at you.
Graphics
In terms of graphics, Forspoken is stated to use all the processing power that the PS5 can muster. The Luminous Engine is the game’s current engine and is a necessity. After all, Crystal Tools, their previous game engine, couldn’t handle newer platforms. This gives Forspoken quite a bit in terms of graphical fidelity, and even a downscaled version of the engine looks great. Just take a look at Final Fantasy XIV’s reboot for a good example of what the Luminous Engine can do. Forspoken is stated to have the full version of the Luminous Engine be used for its graphics and it shows.
Level Design
Forspoken hasn’t shown much in terms of its overall world and level design. What we do know is that Luminous Productions made good use of the Luminous Engine to create an expansive game world for players to explore.
Sound Design
The game sounds pretty good in terms of the sound of attacks and spells hitting are great. Soundtrack-wise, we still don’t have any idea about the full soundtrack. However, we do have Barry McCreary and Garry Schyman on the team. McCreary is known for making the score for God of War (2018) as well as the soundtracks of various films. Meanwhile, Schyman is notable in being the one who made the music for the Bioshock series, as well as the Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor/War games.
Forspoken vs Similar Games
Now that we’ve talked a bit about what Forspoken is, let’s take a look at some games and compare them to it.
God of War (2018)
There’s a lot to talk about the God of War reboot. For one, the game is straight-up fire with how good its combat is in combination with the various abilities Kratos and Atreus get in their journey. The weapon variety might not be as expansive as previous games, with only two weapons available to Kratos, the player’s character. However, this is mitigated by the fact that he has so many moves and attacks that he can learn and then upgrade to do more damage. In addition to this, Atreus, your NPC Son, also has abilities that can be upgraded. He can do a lot of things on his own, providing support to his father by pelting enemies with arrows and various spells. Our favorite would be the one where he summons a full pack of wolves to slash and bite their enemies to death. In terms of graphics, the game looks stunning, like Forspoken. The various worlds each have their distinct feel, and even though the game isn’t a true open-world, it still feels like it due to how full of life it is. Of course, this is relative to where the two are currently. Midgard is obvious, as Atreus and Kratos live there. However, they will eventually visit some of the 9 Realms of Norse Myth throughout their journey, except Asgard, Svartfalfheim, and Vanaheim. Music-wise, God of War 2018 has a great score, and it’s kind of awesome how good it sounds. Barry McCreary, the same guy who’s going to make Forspoken’s score, really blew it out of the water. Especially on the announcement trailer for the game, straight up chills.
Horizon Zero Dawn
Next on the list is Horizon Zero Dawn, another great entry and new IP for the PlayStation. This game is a more traditional Open-World game. What makes the game interesting, however, is the fact that your character, Aloy, is fighting giant robot animals and dinosaurs. Aloy’s an incredibly responsive protagonist. We can only hope that Frey is this responsive on Forspoken as well, though signs point to yes. In addition, the player can do a lot of things with her to take down the game’s various enemies. For example, there are several traps that Aloy can create to waylay the various mechanical beasties that she’ll encounter. There are only two of them, technically, called shock traps and blast traps, and they do exactly what it says on the tin. However, the player wouldn’t be a true big-game hunter if they don’t experience the joys of the Tripcaster. This weapon alone gives a lot of tactical options for Aloy to make use of. She can set enemies on fire, make them explode, or shock them. And the great part of this is the fact that the Tripcaster is a Stealth weapon. She can set these up before a fight, lure enemies near, and then watch as they trigger it and deal a metric ton of damage right after. Hopefully, Forspoken has a lot of tactical variances when it comes to the game’s spells and abilities in combat. It’s cool to do stuff like imprison your enemies in a cage of water and then freeze them to death. But being able to do a bit of trickery here and there would be a nice change of pace as well.
Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor
Last but not least is Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor — a game with a rival system so good, it got copyrighted so no one else could make use of it. However, it would be nice to have interesting interactions with various characters you encounter in a game. Still, other than the Nemesis System, Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor is a great open-world action-adventure game in general. Talion, who the player uses as the playable character for the game, is a ranger of Gondor, who dies. Yes, the protagonist dies at the beginning of the game, but it’s not the end. His body and soul are now one with the spirit of Celebrimbor. And for those that know their Lord of the Rings lore, this should be pretty big, as he’s the one that made the three Rings of Power used by the elves. Talion, of course, isn’t happy at the fact that he and his family got ritually sacrificed and thus goes on a roaring rampage of revenge. Now, Talion’s a ranger of Gondor, and that means he’s got some pretty great fighting prowess. Combine that with the fact that he’s bonded with an elf lord who knows a thing or two about spooky things and you can go places. From mentally dominating orcs to do your bidding, interrogating them for information, straight-up becoming an unstoppable juggernaut of whirling steel, et cetera. And all these things, plus others, are upgradable to boot, with each upgrade having a definite use that Talion and Celebrimbor can take advantage of.
Should You Be Excited for Forspoken?
Any new IP in the gaming industry should be a cause of excitement, and Forspoken’s a pretty interesting one to boot. Hopefully, the hype for this game is worth it, but it seems that the answer to that statement is yes. Forspoken should be a good game in terms of graphics and gameplay.
