Forspoken is one of the most intriguing games of 2022 – it’s not often we get a new AAA RPG franchise from Square Enix – and yet, we still haven’t seen all that much of the game in action. Slickly-edited trailers (like the one shown at The Game Awards) have looked promising, but do they show the game as it really is? Well, as part of a new round of previews, Square Enix has released around 5 minutes of uncut Forspoken gameplay, and it’s sure to get fans talking.
We see main character Frey make her way through a town, then seamlessly glide through a dry, barren landscape. Eventually, she gets into a battle with a large group of what appear to be bandits using a wide array of eye-popping magical attacks. Forspoken’s combat is certainly intriguing and its “magical parkour” movement looks fun and fluid, but there’s no denying the game still looks a little rough around the edges. If you’re expecting Forspoken to be the same level as, say, a Final Fantasy in terms of lavish polish, you may be disappointed. But hey, enough of my preamble, check out the footage for yourself, below.
Of course, a mere 4 ½ minutes of gameplay doesn’t show everything Forspoken has to offer. For instance, a pretty core element of the game, the “Break storm” which periodically delivers more threatening monsters to battle, is not seen here. We also don’t really see the full potential of Forspoken’s magic system, which director Takefumi Terada promises is at the core of everything you do in the game…
The whole game is based around this core pillar of having magic at the center of everything, and certainly in the battle system that is very much the case. When we sat down to develop the magic system and work out what kinds of spells you have, we thought about making sure that you’ve got all these different functions covered. The idea that there’s, for example, long-range magical attacks, close-range magical attacks, and spells which you can close the distance with and [use] outside of battle as well. […] What we really paid a lot of attention to in the initial design phase when we’re planning out the magic system, and how that works in battle, was to allow different people to use the playstyle that they want to use.
Forspoken launches on PC and PS5 on May 24, 2022.
