Please note: This preview is not based on the recently released Forspoken PS5 demo. It’s based on a much bigger build played at a recent event.
Sucker Punch Productions might not be interested in making a newinFAMOUS game any time soon, but Square Enix has you covered: its upcoming PS5 title Forspoken emulates the adventures of Cole MacGrath and Delsin Rowe with a magical twist. A long list of powers is designed to make both combat and traversal a joy, and it works — when everything runs smoothly. While Forspoken is not without its problems (at least before release), Luminous Productions has nailed that sense of wonder in a world unlike our own.
Roughly four hours spent at a recent Square Enix press event granted us access to three of the game's first five chapters, which introduce moody protagonist Frey Holland and her newly found magical abilities as well as the world of Athia. With a focus on story and cinematics, it's a game lacking the biggest of budgets Square Enix can afford with little facial animation during cutscenes and NPCs carrying a noticeable drop in visual quality compared to the main cast.
Still, it's an interesting enough plot to make us want to see more come January 2023. Frey is a clear contrast to the medieval world she's suddenly transported to, at first locked up for being an outsider — and that's not just because of her attitude. With collectibles all over the place detailing backstory and lore, Athia appears to be a location you could invest in alongside Frey's skills.
For the purposes of the demo, we were handed just one of four ability trees. It came with a handful of attacks and then a series of unlockable support spells; using them in tandem is how you subdue both humans and the vicious wildlife of Athia.
With nothing to stop you from essentially spamming abilities — movement perks are at least governed by a stamina meter — you can inundate enemies with damage. It's a neat system, which combined with slick dodges and near misses, makes Forspoken's combat mechanics incredibly pleasing to the eye. There are roughly 100 spells in the game, and we're eager to see what sort of eccentric combinations of attacks one could come up with. Just tying a foe down with tree vines and then getting some quick hits in satisfied us in the early hours.
Fights certainly seem to be the PS5 title's strong suit, but movement feels just as good when it works. Using the Flow ability, you can tidily, well, flow from one building to the next, using your powers to overcome high walls and jump across large gaps. There's a graceful nature to it, almost as if Frey has been doing it all her life instead of just mere hours.
The only problem is it feels a bit too easy to get caught on the environment, completely disrupting motion. A kick is unlocked a few hours in that gets you to the tops of houses faster, but its implementation feels a little fiddly. It seems you're just as likely to fail and land back on the floor, forcing you to start over and regain momentum once more.
Luckily, there's little in the way of buildings — besides ruins — in the open world. It follows the typical setup: with a vast land to explore, you'll find all manner of optional activities to complete, from combat challenges to little side quests and short dungeons. They're all about rewarding XP and unlocking new spells — then you'll repeat the process with tougher tasks. It's going to feel formulaic — there are also resources to gather for a crafting system — but what carries the game is its combat. With so many abilities to earn, experimentation must have been top of the docket when Luminous Productions was designing the experience.
However, one aspect the developer might want to readdress is some of its stronger enemies. They can feel incredibly spongey, with huge health bars that take an age to deplete. It's difficult to judge whether this was due to the restraints of the demo (we were jumping from save to save with spare upgrade points), but we encountered a few too many combatants that offered nothing but a ridiculously large health pool. Without any healing items left, we actually had to lower the difficulty to get past a boss fight that consisted of multiple phases and an absurdly long health bar. It became a little ridiculous after our third or so attempt.
What will split opinion, though, is Frey Holland herself. As demonstrated in past trailers, she's a woman with an attitude and is incredibly trigger-happy with swear words. The latter doesn't work for us; it's actually a little irritating. However, it's far, far too late to change the script so it's something we'll simply have to put up with in the final version. Maybe it'll work for you, but those who loathe this sort of rebellious attitude aren't going to have a good time during cutscenes.
30 frames-per-second is what the game defaults to, which probably doesn't do the combat justice despite the higher-quality cutscenes. After roughly half an hour, we switched to the 60fps mode which made fights feel a lot more fluid and engaging. With few to no noticeable frame rate dips, it feels like the correct way to play the title. There's also a ray tracing option, but we didn't flick that on during our hands on time.
There's a good bit of promise here overall, then. Forspoken demonstrates it has a solid and expansive combat system with spells ripe for customisation as well as an open world that's a joy to traverse. If Luminous Productions can smooth out some of the title's rougher edges in the time it has left, then this PS5 console exclusive could lay a pretty promising benchmark for what is shaping up to be an excellent 2023.
Forspoken releases for PS5 on 24th January 2023 as a console exclusive. Are you interested in the game? Share your thoughts on our hands on impressions in the comments below.
Comments 68
Outside of the fun traversal mechanic, I didn't enjoy my time with this at all. The inFamous comparison is very apt, but it makes Forpsoken look so much poorer, in my opinion. And the dialogue is just grating. I would take Nomura anime grunts any day of the week over the non-stop, Z-grade MCU-esque quips the main character and her stupid cuff spew at each other.
EDIT: this also has some of the worst UI I have ever seen. Even with the large text on, I could barely make out what the menus were trying to tell me, and it was over-stylized to the point of being unintelligible for me. That needs to be fixed before launch.
I'm kind of torn. I pre-ordered the game, but the spark just didn't really want to jump over. I have to give the whole thing another chance and I also think that some development work has to go into it before the release.
I found the combat to be clunky, infact the whole demo felt clunky to be honest. Not a good impression for me
"However, one aspect the developer might want to readdress is some of its stronger enemies. They can feel incredibly spongey, with huge health bars that take an age to deplete"
Uh oh. Nearly every comment I've made about this game has this as my main worry 😬 challenging boss fights are fun, but long repetitive boss fights are boring, especially if the boss looks like a basic 'boss by numbers' as well.
From what I've played of the demo (very little) I do like the bound sword melee attacks, and the huge fire wall that boosts attack power. I could definitely play this as a mostly melee and support spell game, if the enemies are nicely varied and not boring.
Any of the Push Square team know how the 120hz monitor mode works with the currently selected graphics settings? (ray tracing, quality, performance) On my quick play I flicked it on, but it was on ray tracing mode at the time and nothing got greyed out, so how would it effect the actual graphical settings you have selected, does it just ignore whichever setting you have to prioritise 120fps, or does it attempt ray tracing at 120fps 😅😅 I didn't play long enough to actually compare or test
I believe the quality and ray tracing (not sure what RT features there are tbh, it's not reflections on water for sure) modes run at 40fps if you have a 120Hz screen. I used the latter mode and it didn't feel half bad.
@Sakai It’s worth taking into account what I played was completely different to the demo that was made public last week. I didn’t even know the demo existed when I played the game at an event.
@Ravix see my previous comment
Was psyched for this game since it's been announced, but the preview on ign and here make a bad impression. I'll still try the demo, but the bad writing from the trailer seems to be representative of the overall writing. Adding a bunch of fbombs just make it more grating. Too bad, but I'll still wait for final reviews before making my mind.
Traversal was kinda boring. Just hold circle and off she goes, maybe it gets more skillful as it expands. Combat was cool, particularly the machine gun type spell. Too much needless profanity though, a lot of "f" and "s" seemed out of place.
I watched Maximilian Dood play the demo and from what I’ve gathered is the combat and traversal seems pretty fun, the dialogue is kinda cringeworthy, which I think if the developers made the game self aware of that it could actually be funny. Graphics aren’t as impressive as the early trailers as I’d take the performance for sweet 60fps over higher fidelity every day. Anyways, it looks like something Is pick up down the line on the cheap as it gives video game junk food vibes and the PREMIUM price makes that choice even easier, plus One Piece Odyssey comes out next month so that’s 100% getting my berries.
@Voltan yeah, I might test it some more. I don't think I did any combat in 120hz mode, just flicked it on to see the pop up on LG confirm it worked for reference.
I always want to play games in the highest quality possible, but honestly I wasn't even that impressed in any mode on my OLED with this game, so far. It looked a bit rubbish, but I didn't spend any time to tweak anything. It almost looks nicer on a falsely backlit QLED on YouTube videos I've seen, which seems weird
After a quick blast through the demo, I thought it was a bit rubbish to be honest.
Put an hour into the demo and i really liked the magic system, its so cool and there's a lot to it but damn that open world is bland and empty, the lead also feels very obnoxious. I'm interested in playing more but not at full price.
Whole game felt messy.
I played it for an hour and really don't like it, the open world was boring and empty, it suffers from the recent trend of constant verbal diarrhoea and whilst the combat can be quite fun I'm not that keen on the control scheme.
Not one I'll be buying, even on sale, if anything I think I'll replay the much better Infamous games
Agree with what everyone else is saying, I played the demo for a few minutes and both the combat and traversal did not feel good to me at all. My interest was low initially but now it is completely nonexistent
„Bought“ the demo for 0,25 € in Germany and I don’t really like it. The world feels dull and empty. Magic system and fights are okay but nothing I was excited about.
Also the visuals are meh in my opinion. Was hoping for a good showcase for the ps5 here but games like GT7, Horizon 2 and so many others looking way(!) better compared to this game.
I like the demo.
I was on the fence about it until I tried the demo. It is not a game I would rush through, it is clearly made to play over time, (I don't usually rush unless the game play is boring).
My problem is it fall after the Witcher update and right before the Hogwarts game. The release window in terrible.
Also, the demo reminds me of the newly release Valkyrie Elysium.
I didn't vibe with the combat much, it felt like I just spammed through a lot of the enemies with the red magic. I did the 5 objectives and the hard enemy at the end, which lacked any threat and involved me mashing r2 with the odd circle dash. Hard to judge any of the dialogue out of context but expecting this to be a bit of a clunker and overshadowed by the dead space remake. Kudos to square for putting out a demo though
Played the demo. Bit mixed reactions from the demo but maybe because it just throws you in a certain part without any build up. Combat is fun so will be interesting to see review scores
I enjoyed the demo and felt the movement is inspired by early assassins creed games in the one button to control the acrobatic movement. And it’s versatile enough so far. The infamous comparisons have me more hyped. Super stoked for this game.
Yeah I'm in the same boat as a lot of commenters here. It felt really clunky and the traversal was kind of boring. I see where your coming from comparing it to Infamous but it definitely doesn't feel as good to play as Infamous at least based off the demo.
Still I'm interested to see how reviews shake out. Maybe it's just a bad demo.
Sans context I think the demo does the gamer a favor but not the game. Bland environment, lugubrious controls, messy combat visuals, and maybe the worst UI that I've ever seen.
I liked the demo wouldn't pay full price for it but I'll get it when it's on sale.
Messy, awful dialogue, unlikeable characters, and menus of spells is just an eyesore and combat visuals are abit much..and yes too much sparkle in combat is not always a plus, almost as bad as witcher 3 open and select carry on, plus DS remake comes 3 days after this releases
I’m really split on the game, I really enjoyed the traversal and the combat once you get the hang of it, also the Dualsense just shines in this game, probably the best use for the controller so far after Returnal.
However, dialogue is ATROCIOUS, controls are really weird and the tutorial for them is not great either, the world does feel empty and somewhat broken (I fell from the bridge and had to walk all the way to the end to get back up), and the UI is TERRIBLE, if you thought FFXV had a messy UI this is miles worse.
The lead character and the story are very much "blah". The combat is the only good thing about this but needs some little adjustments.
I’m actually replaying the original inFAMOUS right now… huge fan of the series so this is great news for me! 😎
@Ravix I agree with you. I put it on ýlfor 10minutes and I actually didn't like looking at it, was unimpressed with it, can't even put my finger on it. I've got a lg oled c9 at 55in. The writing aswel seemed so small and couldn't even read most of what was going on or the spells, very small at default. (Didn't change settings) actually thoughtnit looked very cluttered ui and the image.
Played the demo for about 15 minutes before bed after TGA, didn't click w/ me at all. Felt, off. I'm playing TLOU2 now, and Ellie moves slow and weird, but Forspoken honestly didn't feel much better. The brown dirt location probably doesn't help their cause, should have gone w/ something like that hellish Caelid landscape in ER. 🤷♂️
Sunset Overdrive is the best inFamous game I've ever played. Still can't believe it hasn't been on a Sony console, it's great. Forspoken felt like bad solo Noctis DLC. 😝
I enjoyed my time with the demo over the weekend.
I'm definitely in to it. Looks like a solid 7/10.
It won't be a goty contender, but it'll be good fantasy fun.
Definitely excited for this, and hoping this will be the first PS5 game I get.
This was always my impression of the game: a In-Famous action with a good setting but bad story. After playing the trailer I decided to buy the game on a sale.
Have the demo downloaded havnt tried it yet. On the topic of infamous. I’ve been playing 2nd son mostly when I have time to kill. I love using the different powers of just running around the city to kill time. Dunno, find it relaxing to do, it’s also something I don’t do with other games. When I have a hour or so to waste, I just load up 2nd son. Would love have a part 3 or even better a full remake of the original games
I remember the first reveal in 2020 in that EPIC showcase where the ps5 was revealed. After that, every forspoken trailer managed to low my expectation little by little with this game. Yesterday I tried the demo for 4 minutes and that was the last nail in the cuffin. Combat feels clunky and over complicated. And the graphical downgrade is outrageous. I love Sony but they dropped the ball big time with this exclusivity.
I'm torn on this one. I didn't realize it was made by those handed the reins to finish the broken mess that was final fantasy xv. Had I known this my hopes for this one would have been tempered.
I share most of the widespread critiques raised. I do think this game needs another delay, but I know it won't get it nor the resources it would need to fix what demo and preview impressions cite as concerns as square Enix is a mess right now in terms of mgmt. I still think the title has potential and anything beyond these shameless remasters and remakes is welcomed.
Sadly with its current release date little can be fixed in terms of the cringe writing, however one thing that must be fixed and is boggling as a design choice is the menu/UI. The intentional warped fishbowl affect makes no sense and serves nothing and genuinely hinders a large portion of of the information displayed. Remapping controls is also a must.
The visuals are also a letdown and actually look very similar to ff xv. In fact that is likely where the inherited terrible writing came from as well. I was aware of the gaming running at 40 fps in quality and rt modes with 120hz mode enabled, so I may try those just to see if it improves visuals, however from what I saw their was really only a resolution difference between the modes. The rt effects have nothing to do with reflections, either they are shadows which if so had little to no real difference in fidelity, or it's ambient occlusion. The best visuals are going to be quality Mode simply because it has the best resolution. However giving up 60 fps in a game that begs for fluidity is a tough sell for the disappointing visuals on display here.
The combat is great. It takes a while to get used to it and realize this is closer to a blend between turn based rpgs of old in terms of spell options, with an action rpg. There is promise of real depth here, and when you learn there are quick swaps it can be pretty bad ass.
I will likely give this game a go to support something new and a new IP for one main reason. As I played I had fun. Hours in that demo had passed before I even did any of the lame main objectives and I had no idea that much time had passed because I was simply having fun. So clearly it holds some charm for me, and that goes a long way In overlooking its shortcomings.
I was underwhelmed by the demo I'm afraid. Spells just resort to mashing R2, plus consistently having to swap between spells just slows the flow of combat, unless you want to fight spongy enemies. Traversal was also a big let down, so often I thought I could scale cliffs but you need to grapple onto beams to gain any height.
It's interesting that the article compares it to Infamous but the problem is Infamous had environments that were tailored to your abilities so you kept on the move, here though it feels like you have to progress very far into the game to make traversal fun. It all made it feel too much like a chore.
Played the demo on the 120hz with RT enabled, felt pretty smooth. I liked the gameplay and traversal. I have a knack for open world games where you see something cool in the backround which you can actually reach. As mentioned the heroine is the only thing constantly breaking my immersion, although I like the NIEResque banter with the bracelet. Maybe not a day1 for me but I'm certainly interested in getting it.
I had to get used to the combat systems and controls, but I really liked this demo overall.
I've played the demo for about 30 minutes, but I don't see the resemblance with Infamous (an IP I really like, especially the first 2 games). Maybe it's the fact that you can shoot continuously, but that is also valid for other games, not something specific to Infamous...
If you want to make a connection to an existing IP, try the open world that seems quite inspired by Elden Ring. The building and enemy distribution around the world, the fact that every moving "character" you see moving in the world will attack you on the spot, etc.
The game has some (overly?) complicated mechanics that take some time to get used to. Traversal is easy, but combat is not so slick or fun.
And I agree that enemies have a ton of health for no actual good reason - aka lack of balance, in need of an optimization.
For now it's not worth the initial price tag imo. If they don't improve it until launch, then maybe I'll get it at a heavy discount later on or as a PS+ essential monthly title.
I had high hopes for this game, but after playing just 30 minutes of the demo, it was clear that this game isn’t for me. The dialog was grating; the visuals left a lot to be desired; the wheel-switching magic and weapons was clumsy, the combat was unsatisfying, and the traversal wasn’t exciting. In many ways, it felt to me like whichever one of the Final Fantasy games that was re-released for PS4/5 a couple of years ago: I bought it and just couldn’t finish it (can’t remember right now which one). So maybe my reaction to Forspoken is just that that type of game isn’t my cup of tea. (I do like Bayonetta and love Breath of the Wild, though, which have some similarities to Forspoken. So I don’t think it’s entirely the genre of Forspoken that turned me off.)
Using magics in this game feels nice but needs time to get used to. One thing I'm not a fan of is the lead character talking a lot and even cussing, like I get that she's your typical new yorker but is it really necessary for her to cuss very often? They really need to lessen the in-game dialogues because the game gets rather annoying the more you hear her talk and it's cringe
I'm hearing even more that the preview they gave to reviewers and streamers, and push Square etc is a lot better at displaying the game than the demo was. Maybe they should just release the first chapter for free and build a player base from there. Let people get to grips with it that way.
I honestly was very open minded about the character in this setting initially, because she is supposed to be a modern New York idiot that's been transported into this crazy world. She is supposed to be like someone off Instagram/YouTube/twitch who is constantly talking like she's streaming for an audience of other idiots, so it maybe will work overall. But in the demo the "banter" did just sound annoying and jarring. And it was so repetitive! "This will be a challenge" "this won't be a challenge" blurgh. Shut up cuff. They are 100% trying to make the cuff like JARVIS too.
I'm still hugely disappointed that the graphics look so much worse than they initially showed. But overall, maybe the game will be a bit better than the demo suggests it will be 😅
GameRiot has a bit of preview footage on YouTube that shows a little more of the world that is a bit more promising, but does touch on a lot of the issues we've all mentioned here already too.
@racinggamefanatic yah just have to go online to Playstation site and pull up a chat with Sony support and they'll do it
This is one game I never had much interest in anyway but I played 30 mins of the demo and had a lot of fun with it.The girls annoying and the writing is bad plus it all felt a bit janky but I came away thinking I'll probably pick it up at some point.
I LOOOOOVE inFamous, it's my favorite "modern, Western" Sony IP. I hate that it's put in storage. This headline had me excited for a game I've been very unconvinced by to date. But reading some of the comments here.... I think I'm going to return to being unsure of it. I trust Sucker Punch....Sly and inFamous have been top notch, and GoT is very good...but also very dry, I like it but not in the way I like the former. IDK about this Square-Enix team though. Sucker Punch nails the Ubisoft format. That's not a format Japanese teams really excel in, and nothing I'm hearing about this so far is changing my mind. I have not yet tried the demo, though. I didn't even know it existed until now!
Liked the demo. Can see combat/world keeping me entertained
Voice samples were not any worse than listening to "And I was the MVP..." for what seemed like five billion times.
I’ve liked the demo of quite a bit so far. Its been a lot of fun. It honestly reminds me a bit of Sonic Frontiers, which i also liked quite a bit. Ive had the game preordered for over a year now. I can’t wait. Early birthday present for me.
Also, this comes from someone that didn’t like inFamous much… but loved FFXV, so there’s that. In Luminous, I trust.
I've already said my piece on the other article, but I thought the demo was pretty OK to good at some points... Definitely not something I need day one, and something I can wait for STEEP sale with the DLC. I can handle tankier enemies, cumbersome and ugly UI, and convoluted combat mechanics, to experience the movement and the combat when it clicks, but to add the HORRIBLE Godawful dialogue and banter (you can minimize it in the menus, but it still SUCKS when you hear it) to the list of frustrations... Even playing it with the JP voice is annoying because you read what the subtitles say, and it's still cringe.
Yeah no. No thanks. I'll pick up the definitive edition for 20 bucks in a few years.
@colonelkilgore Agreed. I played 1 and 2 more than twice.
@Agramonte I was hoping for something a bit meatier.
I played the demo. Found combat poorly balanced, Frey rude and irritating, deleted it
@AdamNovice You can totally scale cliffs with the parkour ability without using the beams. You just need to get used to it.
I played the demo and the game is straight up janky garbage with some of the most annoying dialogue imaginable. Anybody giving this game a good review is either paid off or has bad taste.
Played through the demo yesterday and...eh...it's fun enough but nothing that's going to blow the socks off anyone.
I like the variety of the combat but, good lord, the controls are clunky as hell. It works and you'll get used to it, but it's super cumbersome and unintuitive swapping between the Red and Purple magics on the fly, and there's multiple mentions of a Blue magic in the demo...and I just can't imagine it feeling good having to swap between three or more during combat. It's perfectly serviceable, but it all feels undercooked.
Also the menu UI is terrible and, as everyone else has said, the constant quips from Frey and the cuff are terrible (though, luckily, there IS an option to turn off cuff chatter for everything but necessary story dialogue in the options).
Fells like it's going to be a sold 6 or 7 and not something I'll be picking up at launch, but something I'd certainly check out on sale.
I have mixed feelings after the demo, long story short it didn't left me bored but it didn't wow me enough either.
Not liking this one, the combat and traversal is clunky and feels like something from the PS2 days and the environments feel lifeless and I expect the world will be overly large. The Infamous comparison is also a bad one as the Infamous games control smooth as butter and their smaller open worlds are a major benefit.
want the game to look better even the ps4 infamous games were better looking than the demo we got if the game looks can improve over those games than yeah will buy it
@Mauzuri It was, but @Agramonte gets the credit for starting it
personally, never liked InFamous so this Forspoken is 100% not for me. Big pass.
That sounds awesome to me!
Looks awful unfortunately it also plays that way. The main character is just annoying
@NEStalgia
I was assuming... "you're all thinking it" 😅
Awesome it sold well enough for people to catch the reference. I guess if played it, will have a few ringing in the head somewhere.
I’ve obviously only played through the demo and not what you guys played, but I went from being pretty optimistic about this game to being much less interested.
The demo at least felt bland, repetitive and super easy. I never died and in fact rarely saw my health bar dip at all. The only time it did was when I fought the demo’s “boss” bonus and that was just because of sponginess. I’m not THAT good at games in general right out the gate, so the ease in which I zoomed through the demo with little to no difficulty (other than traversal annoyances) has me concerned. I was THIS close to pre-ordering this until more trailers came out that showcased the main character, who comes off as just kind of annoying to me. I had a wait and see attitude after that. Now I’m not sure I want it at all.
That being said, that is exactly what demos are for and I’m grateful that there is one. A lot of people that I’ve seen online seemed to enjoy it, so I hope the release goes well for them as I want more new IPs out there… I just don’t think this one is for me.
EDITED to add that I really expected more from this, visually. The initial reveal was stunning, but the demo, even in quality mode, looked quite a bit worse than crossgen games like Forbidden West and Ragnarok. It was hardly the PS5 showcase that I was expecting it to be.
I'm choosing to avoid the demo, waiting for launch week reviews!
Played the demo straight off the back of finishing God of War: Ragnarok. That was a mistake.
@LiamCroft you didn't happen to notice if the camera could be moved further back? The demo made me feel nauseous and I think it was from how close to Fray it remained at all times.
I'm starting to think SE is a terrible publisher towards western studios.
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