There are several poppy cinematic spinoffs featuring Marvel and DC superheroes, Gollum from Lord of the Rings and the Na’vi from Avatar. Even pink puffball Kirby is bouncing through an abandoned city rather than his typical brightly-colored dreamland.ĭon’t worry, it’s not all doom and gloom. Or a post-apocalyptic world where millions of people suddenly disappear or die. Or a post-apocalyptic world that has been decimated by climate change. I also couldn’t help but notice there are an awful lot of new games set in a post-apocalyptic world where a virus has ravaged the planet’s population. Martin, the mystical Forspoken from Uncharted’s Amy Henig and the space saga Starfield, a game that’s been in the works at Bethesda for 25 years.
Perhaps even more intriguing than the old series are original concept games from famous creators, including the fantastical Elden Ring from none other than George R.R. Hollow Knight and Breath of the Wild are also (supposedly) debuting sequels in 2022, though given the scope of these games and previous delays, those release dates may well slip into 2023. Will it stand a chance? We'll have to wait and see.Some of the most lauded games of the last decade are getting new entries this year, including Horizon Zero Dawn, God of War and Gran Turismo. But the game feels more like its in search of its own soul can this be more than a tech demo come to life? Can it exist outside of Final Fantasy 15's (remarkably troubled) shadow? I'm pretty sold on the dynamic and acrobatic movement – off of which can be enhanced by Frey’s mystical powers – but I fear that Athia might be nice to look at, lacking and real depth or identity beyond some flashy particle effects and a bizarre talking bracelet.įorspoken is set to launch on Octo– no doubt going up against some other big titles in the busy part of the year. Still, though, it's hard to get excited about the game tells the story of Frey – a young New Yorker in search of a way home. Forspoken certainly looks a bit like FFXV's Duscae, no? Maybe that will result in an interesting game that's more than the sum of its (admittedly impressive) parts. Perhaps the poor engineers at Square Enix have finally managed to get the Luminous Engine working as they wanted it to basically a decade ago, at this point. The gameplay kinda looks like what Final Fantasy 15 wanted to be, too – magic-focused, lots of mobility, hot-swapping spells on the fly as you fry enemies in real-time. So you know it's going to sound at least interesting. Then there's the music BAFTA award-winning composers Bear McCreary (God of War 2018), The Walking Dead) and Garry Schyman (Bioshock) wrote the score. So there's some strong talent on the narrative side. Games writing savant and consultant Amy Hennig also lent her skills to the game back in 2019. Let's look at what we know about Forspoken to date: it's being written, partly, by Gary Whitta – who you may know as the scribe behind Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, and it was he who conceived the original concept. Forspoken certainly looks good – but is that enough? “Our vision for this exciting new IP is to deliver a game world and hero that gamers across the globe will want to experience for years to come, so getting it right is extremely important for us,” said the publisher at the time.īut will extra time in the oven save the game? Maybe. The publisher confirmed earlier this year that the title will now launch in October 2022, slipped quite a way past its planned May release date. The game caught further controversy when Square Enix announced it was getting a pretty significant delay in March this year. Others thought it looked like a cynical cash-in on a famously troubled engine. Some thought it looked great like a playable version of the Agni's Philosophy tech demo we saw developer Luminous Productions put out years ago.
Forspoken was first unveiled way back in June 2020, and when we first got a look at the game – which was previously known as Project Athia – players were instantly divided.