Forspoken Preview – Cuffing Season In Athia

I’ve been excited about Forspoken since its reveal as Project Athia in 2020. The fish-out-of-water game set in a medieval fantasy realm is developed by Luminous Productions – an internal Square Enix team that helped develop Final Fantasy XV, a game I quite enjoyed despite its problems. It also features the talents of Uncharted series creator Amy Hennig and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story writer Gary Whitta on the narrative side, which makes me interested in playing through protagonist Frey Holland’s journey. 

On paper, it’s precisely the type of RPG I like to spend my time playing. After going hands-on for a few hours and talking with some of the team about decisions behind Forspoken’s design, I’m even more excited for January, even if I still have some reservations about this studio’s first new IP. 

This preview session was focused solely on the story, with the team encouraging me to worry less about exploring Athia and more about finding out what happens on the main path of Forspoken’s second, third, and fifth chapters. In Chapter two, Frey has just arrived in Athia, still unaware of how or why she ended up there –  questions that remain unanswered through the chapters I play. Frey, a New York City woman with a history of being in foster cares. Because of this, Frey is not able to trust people. 

She is actually unable to trust anyone, even the vambrace she wears on her arm, called Cuff. I find Frey’s dynamic with Cuff quite funny, and that is what makes it stand out. 

There is a moment when Cuff is getting on Frey’s nerves, and she tells him to shut up, adding, “You’re f***ing stupid,” and I laughed out loud. Frey’s fish-out-of-water personality is mainly by the books, but her initial apathy in this foreign fantasy realm is sometimes funny. Over the few chapters I played, she grew attached to Athia and its plight against the corruption, or the Break as Frey calls it, that’s turning what was once a peaceful and protected land into a place filled with mindless and dangerous monsters. Her trepidation about joining the fray when she arrives first is understandable. 

The dialogue is one of my biggest surprise. It’s mostly free from the Joss Whedon-esque, shotgun blasts, cringe lines that were criticized in the August 30-second trailer. Although there are a couple of lines that keep that tone, Luminous Productions has spread them out in Forspoken enough to feel organic. These lines are logical and make Frey a more complex character. 

Raio Mitsuno, creative producer of this trailer and subsequent backlash was what I asked. 

“I’m really glad you brought it up,” Mitsuno tells me at the preview session. “It was a social media post that took a bunch of pieces of dialogue that we’ve used in previous trailers and put together for a new video. It was clear that people would enjoy the game once they had an opportunity to actually play it and to meet Frey. [and] the interactions… her personality just comes across as a natural representation of the character that we wanted to create. We have very limited time so it has been difficult to depict this complex and dynamic character in our campaign. We also don’t want to reveal everything about the story, so we’re trying to keep things under wraps, but we want to drive intrigue and interest for the character.”

Mitsuno said that the team believed in Frey and loves what she stands for. She also believes people will get to know her better when they play the game. However, the team recognizes that Frey may be misunderstood in certain contexts. Mitsuno said that this moment was an opportunity to learn. 

After playing through a tutorial to learn how Forspoken’s magic-based combat works, I make my way toward Cipal, Athia’s central capital and the last secure bastion of the realm, still untouched by the Break. Before I encounter a dragon boss, there are a lot of enemies in the mob. The fighting is very difficult at this stage. It can be difficult to get used to fighting with only magic at first. But it does click when the spells at my disposal open up, and I realize that while every combative move is magic, each of these spells translates to a mechanic I’m familiar with in other games. My spell is a string of medium-range rocks that fires from my fingers, much like a gun. Another is an explosion of stones – a grenade. Also, I possess a shield spell which blasts your enemies in the backwards upon implosion. 

When I unlock new fire-based magical abilities, I am able to access a fiery spear and a flame-infused spear, which provide great coverage for long distances. The combat feels unnatural at first, but in due time, it clicks, and I can see the dozens of spells at Frey’s disposal turning into a fun and strategic system that rewards various playstyles. That’s what the team expects, too. 

“In particular, because we have an open world on our hands and we have 100 spells at our disposal, it really opens up to a variety of gameplay as mentioned earlier,” co-director Takefumi Terada tells me through a translator. “Strengthing and enhancing one [spell] may open up and lead to others, so if there are 100 different people, he really hopes in the end that there are 100 different builds that players are enjoying.” 

Mitsuno adds that while “builds” can be used to describe what players might make of their Frey, the team doesn’t mean “builds” in the traditional sense, like what you might find in Destiny 2 or an MMO. It’s more so that you can choose which spells to utilize at any given moment. Fire magic can be used if you are more comfortable with earth-based spells. You can always switch to another magical technique at any time. 

Frey gets a name as a hellspawn heretic soon after defeating the dragon. Auden Keen (a local who was studying the phenomenon that brought Frey and Athia to Athia), breaks me out. Auden tasks me with finding more of her father’s journals. 

To do this, I leave and return to Athia. There, Tanta Sila (an ex-protector of the realm, now apparently evil), threatens Auden to kill me if Auden does not free her. It ends in a boss fight against the vakyrie-esque creature. This feels very much like an arena-style battle against a weak boss. It’s quick and easy, and soon after, I’m en route to Sila’ castle to fight the real deal. 

As I travel, I learn new parkour skills that are not as appealing to me. Although it looks great and is very flashy, the parkour feels disconnected. Frey moves by simply holding the circle button. Frey can climb small hills, jump off hills, avoid enemies and much more. Although it may be more practical, the parkour fails to inspire excitement beyond what I see when moving. 

I initially worried that parkouring through Athia’s vast lands would result in me missing key points of interest on the map. While there weren’t many points to discover this early in the game, Mitsuno did say the team took great care to ensure the world remains enticing while traversing through it using Forspoken’s parkour system. 

“We wanted to ensure that people were able to fully enjoy the magic parkour action, so the open world is built around that concept,” Terada says. “We first started off by testing out how the magic parkour feels and the controllability and playability of that as far as the speed and elevation differences and jumps between different terrains and heights and so forth.” The team made sure to focus on that early in development and then built the world specifically to take advantage of the movement abilities they created for Frey.

“When we were initially creating this game experience where we were trying to direct people to the main story path, we did come across the challenge and issue where players might miss certain things within the world map, so as you mentioned, that was quite a difficult aspect,” Terada says. “However, we did conduct numerous user tests and analyzed gameplay from those and assured that additional work and balance and adjustments were made to arrive at where we currently are.” 

Parkouring my way to Sila I fight various mob foes along the route. Frey also gets a brand new set of Nails. Different markings can be added to Frey’s nails, each with different buffs. For example, I have the Blue Flash Nails on Frey’s right hand, which buffs all damage by 5% and allows attack spells to charge more quickly. Slay Nails can be found on Frey’s left side. These increase spell damage and help support magic do more damage. Frey can also be upgraded with a variety of skills trees as well as different types of gear like wearable clothes and other accessories.

Along my route to Sila, I attempt side content such as running a race. Parkour across the terrain to defeat enemies and complete the race before the time runs out. I had a lot of fun and got a lot of experience. I also ran into a boss far too powerful for me to fight, but I’m now intrigued about these tough battles scattered around Athia. I continue up the cliffside to finally make it to Sila’ castle. I learn a bit more about the four Tantas and their roles in Athia before entering Sila’ throne room. 

Although my fight with Sila was fun, it is not unlike the boss valkyrie and dragon before her. The fight’s not doing anything new, but Frey’s parkour abilities and various magical spells are a fun addition to this typical arena-style boss fight. Visually, it’s great – Frey’s purple earth-based spells clash well with Sila’ fiery orange magic, and I’m excited to see what other magical combos will come from fighting the other three potentially corrupt Tanta protectors. 

I wish the rest of Forspoken’s visuals excited me as much, though. Athia or, at the very least, what I saw when I first started to play around with it, seems uninspired and generic. It’s more like a mannequin rather than a human character, and the characters are also strange. There are still a little under two months to go before Forspoken’s release, so I’m hopeful the final product looks better than this preview. At the very least, if the visuals struggle at release, there’s fun to be had with Forspoken’s combat and characters.