Forspoken review – how not to launch a new video game franchise-GameCentral-Entertainment – Metro

Forspoken – just as good as the demo suggested (pic: Square Enix)

Square Enix’s new action role-player is a brand new IP from a brand new developer but why has it already proven so controversial?

Publishers do read game reviews. They’ll carefully analyse the press reaction after a game’s launch, but what conclusions they tend to draw from them we do not know. Although we certainly never get the impression they use them as constructive criticism. Developers always seem to be much more understanding but for publishers a bad review is more likely to be viewed as a failure of PR than an indication that anything was wrong with the game.

Perhaps that’s understandable – after all, publishers are not creatives – but when it comes to Forspoken we struggle to imagine what was going through anyone’s head, at any point in its development. Although it’s easy to understand why they tried to restrict review copies before launch, as the game’s problems are obvious within moments of starting it up.

Originally announced as Project Athia, the game is by new studio Luminous Productions, many of whom worked on Final Fantasy 15. This is a brand new IP intended to show off the full capabilities of the PlayStation 5 and to appeal more to Western audiences… and it completely fails at both objectives. A brief glance at a video, or the ill-advised demo, tells you all you need to know about the lacklustre graphics, while the fumbled attempts to include a more diverse cast of characters are a particularly unfortunate failure.

As the marketing makes plain, the main character in Forspoken is a black woman named Frey, which is unusual for any game, let alone a fantasy title like this. She starts the game as an abandoned orphan in New York City, before stumbling into the fantasy world of Athia. However, long before the game’s launch, there were concerns about her stereotypical backstory and persona, especially as the game has a large writing team (including Uncharted creator Amy Hennig and Rogue One writer Gary Whitta) and yet not one of them is black.

On top of this is the fact that her character is so instantly unlikeable. She’s no doubt meant to be sassy and relatable but instead she comes across as caustic and selfish. Apart from anything she’s constantly swearing, as everyone else looks on in embarrassed silence; either that or she, and her magic sentient bracelet, are engaging in dialogue that’s clearly aiming for Whedon-esque, Marvel style flippancy but constantly misses the mark – at times almost entering the realm of so bad it’s good.

The fact that there’s an option to turn off their incidental dialogue tells you all you need to know about both main characters, but unfortunately they’re not the only problem. None of the other characters are any more sympathetic, with most being two-dimensional cut-outs that seem to exist for no reason than to spout lengthy reams of exposition, despite the otherwise very simple plot: get rid of a deadly miasma and defeat four evil sorceresses.

It would’ve been a much better idea to make Frey a denizen of Athia, which is extremely diverse for a fantasy world, in terms of racial makeup and women being in positions of power. That also would’ve fit better with the main themes of the game which, rather than being focused on race, is more interested in exploring issues of class inequality.

These elements are handled relatively subtlety, as you note how different people react to you and your companions, depending on their background. Like everything else in the game, the most interesting moments for Frey’s characterisation come right near the end, although her transformation into a more heroic figure happens so suddenly it doesn’t so much feel like a plot arc as a plot point that someone forgot to join the dots to.

Unfortunately, the gameplay is no more interesting than the storytelling. Square Enix has tried to push Frey’s magical parkour powers as a key selling point but if you have played the demo you’ll know that they’re not particularly fun to use, or even especially useful.

They can get you round the dull, open world environments without needing a mount, but the game also wants you to use them to climb up and around buildings and scenery. And yet it’s very hard to be precise when moving, as there’s too much momentum and slowing down from a run, to land on the platform you want, frequently seems impossible.

You do get access to a wider range of parkour abilities as the game progresses, which helps to mitigate the issue, but unfortunately most of the interesting gameplay additions don’t appear until at least the halfway point, at which stage the whole experience is already beginning to feel like a slog.

This is equally true of the magic based combat, which is so slow and tiresome in the beginning it’s almost kind of shocking. It’s primarily range based and, just like the platforming, requires a level of precision that the parkour system directly works against, with a ponderous rhythm that stands in unhelpful contrast to the fast-paced movement system.

Forspoken – the open world is not an interesting place to explore (pic: Square Enix)

Most of your enemies are mutant humans and animals, with the visual design work being pitifully uninteresting thanks to drab colour schemes and a disappointing lack of invention. A lot of the enemies are bullet sponges too, showing little reaction to your attacks until they finally keel over after a seemingly arbitrary number of blows.

Despite these problems the game has over 100 different spells for you to learn and once you get access to a majority of them you begin to feel a lot more powerful, and battles finally start to show some life. But, again, this happens far too late, long after the other flaws have eaten away at your enthusiasm – and besides, the bullet sponge problem only gets worse towards the end.

Forspoken’s faults seem blindingly obvious and yet they’ve all been allowed to persist by a publisher, if not a developer, that should know better. It’s not a complete disaster but while it might have been worthwhile for genre fans to try out if it was free on Game Pass the reality is that it’s not and there is no way we could ever recommend someone pay £65 for such a flawed experience.

To think that Luminous Productions was presented with a blank slate and this is what they came up with seems bizarre, but Square Enix clearly realises it’s a dud and their churlishness with regards to review copies has confirmed the game’s quality with far more certainty than any individual review could.

Formats: PlayStation 5 (reviewed) and PC
Price: £64.99
Publisher: Square Enix
Developer: Luminous Productions
Release Date: 24th January 2023
Age Rating: 18

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