Skip to main content

I’m sold on Forspoken’s dazzling spellcasting, but the jury’s out on story

When I first went hands-on with Forspoken earlier this year, I didn’t get a sense of its world. I don’t mean its open-world — I saw plenty of that as I zipped around its rolling hills like Sonic the Hedgehog. Rather, I didn’t learn much about Athia beyond its gorgeous landscapes. All I got to see was a promising playground that gave me plenty of excuses to sling spells at wandering monsters. It was dazzling, but what was I doing here?

My missing context was filled in with a more recent and much longer demo. While the build I played in October dropped me into its open-ended seventh chapter and focused on its systems, this slice was more focused on building the story. I’d learn who Frey, the game’s wise-talking protagonist, is and even gain insight into the political turmoil in Athia. I walked out of my four-hour session with no ambiguity about what it was.

Forspoken is a true PS5 game

The contrast between the two demos speaks to an overall balancing act that developer Luminous Productions is trying to land here. Yes, Forspoken is your typical open-world game filled with a map full of activities to complete. However, it’s also aiming to tell a rich fantasy story through more direct sequences that weave together its open-ended segments. That approach (coupled with some spectacular visuals) has me intrigued by what could be a strong setup for Square Enix’s next big franchise.

Recommended Videos

Welcome to Athia

In this slice, my journey begins in chapter 2. Frey is immediately spit out of a portal, transporting her from the Holland Tunnel in New York City to a crumbling ruin in Athia. Luminous’ inspirations become immediately clear when I open a lore menu and see an entry about Alice in Wonderland — the chapter name itself even references the story’s “rabbit hole.” Through that lens, the whole idea of the game quickly snaps into place, something I’d further confirm when speaking to the team behind it.

“We drew inspiration from fish-out-of-water stories like [Alice in Wonderland],” Creative Producer Raio Mitsuno tells Digital Trends. “The Wizard of Oz, The Chronicles of Narnia … we wanted to create a kind of modern version of that. Let’s take a character from our world, in our modern times, who sees the world the way we see it, and then throw her in this fantasy world where she doesn’t know left from right. As Frey goes through her journey, players are basically experiencing it the same way that she does.”

Frey is handcuffed and guarded in Forspoken.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Luminous has fun here creating contrast between a “ye olde fantasy” setting and a loud-mouthed New Yorker with no filter, injecting some of that fish-out-of-water comedy into its grand worldbuilding. First, a confused Frey freaks out as she sees a massive dragon wander by. After a thrilling fight against it, she’s captured by humans and brought to a small town not dissimilar from something you’d see in The Elder Scrolls. When she’s placed on trial, the town’s judges ask where she’s from. She replies, “Hell’s Kitchen,” which sends everyone into demonic panic. Moments like that sold me on the narrative concept, getting a few good chuckles out of me.

Worldbuilding is a major focus during the game’s early chapters and Fospoken’s way of delivering that narrative can sometimes feel a little slow. During my hands-on time, I experienced a fair amount of “walk and talks” with villagers and static conversations with my magical bracelet, Cuff, filling in lore details. I ultimately need to see how that plays out in the pace of the overall package. The full game seems like it’ll space those moments out, more naturally placing them in-between segments of quick-paced traversal.

Forspoken Deep Dive | Exploring Athia

What does leave me a little skeptical, though, is Frey’s characterization. She’s a Black woman from New York City who loves “fresh” sneakers (a lore snippet from the game) and has an arrest record. It seems like a specific cultural backstory, but her writing so far is mostly nondescript; she’s a template Marvel superhero firing off quippy one-liners. When asked why New York City was chosen as Frey’s hometown, the Luminous team explained that they built Frey’s personality first and then decided that creation seemed to make sense for a character who lived there. That contextualizes some of that tension I feel in the writing, as Frey’s background is, well, just background.

Forspoken sounds a bit like a studio trying to create a story that feels “Western” by drawing inspiration from the most popular films and games from the U.S. The fact that it feels like something pulled out of our current media monoculture says more about the entertainment landscape than Forspoken.

Gotta go fast

While the approach to storytelling left me with questions, its gameplay is less ambiguous. I continue to be impressed with the unique magic-slinging system. In this demo, I mostly used purple magic, which gives Frey the power to shoot rocks at her enemies. Fights find a nice balance between close- and long-rranged attacks thanks to the various spells. During my dragon battle, I’m peppering pebbles at its chest from across an arena to avoid its massive swipes. When it starts prepping a devastating fire attack, I duck under its chest and start shooting shotgun-like rock blasts upwards to inflict some massive damage.

The focus on magic is where you can feel Luminous’ roots come into play. The studio previously created Final Fantasy XV, so it is no stranger to creating powerful spells. That ended up being a guiding philosophy on Forspoken, which aimed to take that idea even further with an entirely unique system.

“We really wanted to put the central focus around magic,” co-director Takefumi Terada tells Digital Trends. “Having a history of working on Final Fantasy titles, magic has … been an important part of that franchise and something that’s carried over within that series. There’s a sense of importance placed around magic as a concept, and we wanted to hold dear to that, however, we felt like creating a more magic-focused experience would lend itself to an extremely new battle system.”

Frey prepares spells to attack a creature in Forspoken.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Terada stresses that the system is built to support multiple playstyles. I can feel that in each thrilling boss fight I encounter, pushing me to switch my spells wisely based on my position to my foe. The climactic chapter 5 finds the game at its most exciting. Frey needs to storm a castle to go toe-to-toe with the villainous Tanta Sila. The trek up the castle’s walls almost plays like a fast-paced Souls game. I need to cut a path through the winding architecture, using my magical parkour to move up walls. I can choose to fight and stop some enemies along the way, though I risk taking damage and having to burn some valuable healing potions before the big fight.

The Souls atmosphere continues in the actual boss encounter, as I’m thrown into a multiphase battle that requires me to learn Sila’s devastating attack patterns and duck them with my evasive magic. That distance management I mentioned comes in clutch here, as I’m able to move away when I start to feel vulnerable and switch to a weaker long-ranged attack. There’s never a moment where I’m purely on the defensive waiting for an opening; I can always create one.

My demo ends in the more open-ended chapter 4, where I’m free to roam the world and complete whatever side activities I stumble across. That’s ultimately where the game sings, focusing on incredibly fast traversal that makes me feel like a human Sonic the Hedgehog. While roaming, I fight a labyrinth full of monsters, take photos of landscapes with my smartphone, and even befriend a cat by slowly sneaking up to it. Most are fairly standard ideas for the genre, but the incredibly fluid movement makes it fun to chase those map waypoints.

Frey uses fire magic in Forspoken.
Square Enix

Now having played over four hours of Forspoken, I’m feeling like this is a good first step for a new series, even if it’s not a perfectly ironed outing for Frey. There’s some strong worldbuilding for fantasy fans to sink their teeth into and some levity to keep it from getting too drab. The story revolves around Frey finding her comfort zone in a new world, and I imagine that’ll be mirrored in players’ journeys too. I believe I’ll feel more comfortable with it all the deeper I get in the full release.

Forspoken launches on January 24 for PlayStation 5.

Topics
Giovanni Colantonio
As Digital Trends' Senior Gaming Editor, Giovanni Colantonio oversees all things video games at Digital Trends. As a veteran…
Exoprimal is Overwatch with dinosaurs and I’m already sold
A group of players fights a T-Rex in Exoprimal.

Capcom does not have an excellent track record with multiplayer games. While the Monster Hunter titles have always been solid, games like Umbrella Corps missed the mark with underwhelming gameplay. That puts Exoprimal in a weird position, especially considering that it’s a Capcom dinosaur game that doesn't use the much-beloved Dino Crisis IP, a franchise fans have been begging to see revived.
This isn’t Dino Crisis 4; it’s something wholly new. Still, I came away pleasantly surprised from my hands-on with Exoprimal’s closed beta, as it’s a much more robust and inspired multiplayer shooter than I expected. While its PvP aspect feels muddled in Dinosaur Survival mode, Exoprimal is a promising cooperative shooter with dinosaurs as enemies and a distinct visual flair.
Exoprimal - Dinosaur Introduction
The cavalry’s here
In Exoprimal, players control soldiers eternally stuck in “Wargames,” where they must survive hordes of dinosaurs because an AI named Leviathan has gone rogue. It’s a light narrative that justifies why players repeatedly do the same mission, but the concept is wacky enough for me to buy into it. Visuals and combat are where Exoprimal shines, though.
Exoprimal is a detailed and crisp-looking RE Engine game but also is as vibrant and colorful as you’d hope a game about mechs fighting dinosaurs would be. If the frame rate can stay stable while fighting off hordes of dinosaurs across all platforms, this could be one of the most visually pleasing games of 2023. As for the gameplay, Exoprimal features flash exosuit weapons and abilities and actually lifts its role-based gameplay out of Overwatch.
While Dinosaur Survival doesn’t copy Overwatch’s PvP experience like Gundam Evolution, exosuits split into Assault, Tank, and Support roles, just like heroes in Overwatch. Some abilities are similar to those of Overwatch characters, and team composition is vital to success. The player character even yells “The cavalry’s here” when getting into the Deadeye Assault exosuit, clearing up any confusion about its influences. Thankfully, Capcom doesn’t have to worry about stepping on Blizzard Entertainment’s toes thanks to its wildly different premise and cooperative focus -- at least until Overwatch 2’s PvE content finally comes out.

In this Closed Beta, I had access to two Assault exosuits, one tank exosuit, and one support exosuit. My favorite class so far is the Witch Doctor, a healing-focused exosuit that could directly patch up allies or put out an area-of-effect attack that heals everyone in its vicinity. Offensively, it’s not good on its own, but I found that I enjoyed helping my allies in a way I hadn’t since Mercy and Baptiste pre-nerf in Overwatch.
Gunplay is satisfying, and each exosuit’s special abilities lend themselves to unique team compositions that allow you to mow down dinos efficiently. Players can change their exosuits at any time if need be, although this does leave you exposed without any suit powers for a little bit. If you liked Overwatch’s role-based system and wondered how it’d look in a more cooperative experience, Exoprimal is worth a look.
Dealing with the dino crisis
The one mode available to play during this Closed Beta was Dinosaur Survival. The setting and objectives would vary a little bit from match to match, but the core was always the same: two teams complete a series of objectives independently from each other, with the winner getting a head start in the final leg of the match.

Read more
Forspoken pulled from packed fall lineup, delayed till January 2023
forspoken delay to 2023

Square Enix and Luminous Productions have announced that Forspoken has been delayed to January 24, 2023.

"As a result of ongoing discussions with key partners, we have made the strategic decision to move the launch date of Forspoken to January 24, 2023," Square Enix said in a statement on Twitter. "We would like to thank you for your continued support and patience on this journey. Your excitement for the game inspires us every day and we cannot wait to share more about Forspoken with you later this summer!"

Read more
PS Plus won’t beat Xbox Game Pass, and that’s why I’m sold
Miles drops his phone while swinging in Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales.

Sony’s revamped PS Plus service was under the microscope before it was even announced. As soon as journalists caught wind of the company’s rumored “Spartacus” service, fans began speculating about how it would stack up against Xbox Game Pass. When Sony formally revealed its plans and noted that PS Plus wouldn’t feature new launch day releases, many immediately wrote the service off as an unworthy competitor.

Today, Sony made a key pit stop on the road to the service’s June 13 launch. The company released a long list of “some” of the games that will launch with PS Plus. The list includes recent PS5 hits like Returnal and classic titles dating back to the PS1. It isn’t an exhaustive list of all the PlayStation’s greatest hits, but it’ll bring series like Ape Escape, Jax and Daxter, and Ratchet & Clank games to modern consoles.

Read more