DON'T SPEAK

FORSPOKEN could have been excellent if it tried a little harder

- Mollie Taylor

On paper, Forspoken is a videoame that should have resonated with me. It’s a Luminous Productions/Square Enix venture, a developer I remain deathly loyal to despite its poor track record in more recent years. You see, Forspoken features some of my favourite things in life: nail art, cats, parkour and badass matriarchal rulers.

Yet, Forspoken is let down by its sheer unwillingness to break the mould. In many ways, it’s the exact type of game you’ve seen countless times across the last 15 years. An open world RPG with superpowers, mystical creatures, and a terrifying world-ending threat. It does play into some isekai tropes, with protagonist Frey Holland whisked away from her New York home and plonked into a fantastical world. Along with her talking bracelet companion Cuff, she navigates the world of Athia and the Break which threatens to consume the land and everyone in it.

A-FREY’D TO EVOLVE

It’s a pedestrian premise, one that never goes anywhere particularly exciting. Its twists and turns feel predictable. Game stories don’t necessarily have to have Bioshock or Nier: Automata levels of clever plot twists, but Forspoken too often fails to have fun with its premise. For what it’s worth, though, I enjoyed the latter half of the narrative. The beginning of the game is mired by some rather choice story beats, like making Frey a petty criminal who squats in an abandoned apartment and has some troubling run-ins with a local gang. Once it stops focusing so heavily on who New York Frey is and puts more emphasis on Athia Frey, it becomes a much more enjoyable story.