FORSPOKEN
Do magic, kill jacked-up beasts, and so on, and so on
Publisher
Square Enix
Developer
In-house (Luminous Productions)
Format
PC, PS5
Origin
Japan
Release
January 24
As Frey prepares to slip out on to the streets of Cipal – the final bastion of humanity, a walled town where Frey’s magical powers and outsider status are enough to mark her as a fugitive – her one ally in this world offers a change of clothes. Frey wraps herself in a dun leather cloak to hide the ripped jeans and waist-tied flannel shirt that would give away her identity to the locals. One thing, though, sticks out: the pair of battered white trainers on her feet. The ally points this out, but Frey won’t be parted from her beloved kicks. Not because they’re magic (they are) but because they’re an essential part of her style.
It’s a moment that leaves us considering the overall ensemble, a look that on closer inspection says a lot not just about Frey but also the world, and game, in which she finds herself. The cloak is an attempt to fit in with the citizens of Athia, a once-shining fantasy kingdom now beset by the kind of corrupting blight that seems to be an occupational hazard for any fantasy kingdom. The everyday civvies beneath, meanwhile, are a relic of Frey’s old life in New York, from where she stumbled, in classic isekai fashion, through a portal.
This mix of styles is at the very root of Forspoken’s development. The game is the work of Luminous Productions, a Square Enix studio made up of members of the Final Fantasy XV development team and an equal number of newcomers – specifically founded, as studio head Takeshi Aramaki tells us, “to bring about something new”. Creative producer Raio Mitsuno steps in to explain further: “We wanted to break down boundaries and try new things. So we started with the idea of, OK, let’s make a game about magic. That’s something we’re used to doing in our catalogue at Square Enix. And fantasy is our forte. When it comes to storytelling, we thought, hey, let’s try something new. Let’s work with amazing story writers from the west, to help bring these two things together.”