Forspoken, the fantasy RPG from Square Enix and Luminous Productions, has been rated in Australia.
The Australian Classification board handed down its ruling yesterday, awarding the game an M rating. Among its notes, it says the game contains “mature themes, fantasy violence and coarse language,” all of which we’ve been able to glean from both trailers and previews alike.
Forspoken seems like an odd, angular blend of Eastern and Western design methodologies. It takes its cues from the JRPG school of game design that is Square’s bread and butter and marries it to extremely Western characters and narrative design.
The game follows New York native Frey, a young woman pulled into a fantasy world called Athia. Athia is described as being both “beautiful and cruel.” Suddenly blessed with an array of magical powers, Frey must fight to find a way home or perish in the attempt. It’s hard to describe what we’ve seen of Forspoken so far. The best I’ve got is a game that’s somewhere between Final Fantasy XV and Uncharted. This is in the sense that the combat feels very much like a real-time JRPG with American characters that refuse to shut up.
The vast majority of previews to date seem to struggle with this aspect the most. Few who’ve sat in on the (mostly) hands-off previews for Forspoken haven’t exactly rated it enthusiastically. Rather, it seems to have been met with cautious optimism across the board.
Forspoken launches May 25, 2022, for PlayStation 5 and Windows PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store.
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