Forspoken Developers Discuss Magic Parkour System & More – Tokyo Game Show 2021

The team behind the upcoming open-world RPG Forspoken has discussed a number of details about the game, including its spells, antagonists, and ‘magical parkour’.

During a extended special showcase As part of the Tokyo Game Show 2021, co-director Takefumi Terada and creative producer Raio Mitsuno shed a bit more light on the game. Forspoken centers on the main character Frey, a young girl who falls through a portal and ends up in the strange land of Athia, and the adventures she embarks on to get home.

As already seen in the game’s trailers, Frey can wield magic, and Terada mentioned that her learning to use magical abilities is a big part of the story. Unsurprisingly after seeing the trailers, magic will also be central to Forspoken’s combat system. Frey can use various spells to attack enemies or set traps, among other things. In the game trailer, she is seen unleashing an explosive spell on the ground in one scene and encasing an enemy in a ball of water in another.

There will be a wide variety of spells to learn and many ways to make them stronger. “Our goal was to allow players to learn a wide variety of spells,” Terada said. He went on to say that the game was designed to encourage players to experiment with various types of magic.

Athia is a vast open world that Frey will traverse through what Terada called ‘Magic Parkour’. “I really feel like it captures what makes our style of development at Luminous Productions so special,” said Terada. Frey is seen rapidly moving from place to place, covering great distances in the air and performing movements similar to the bullet jump mechanic in the Warframe action game from the early 2010s.

Terada also mentioned that the game’s controls are simple and that magic or parkour abilities can be used with a single button.

Forspoken was first introduced to the world as Project Athia in June 2020. Even in the early stages, the team wanted to show what next-generation hardware could do. Once again they said that their goal is to make a game with the best graphics in the world.

“We have been working to polish the graphics every day,” Mitsuno said. The team hopes to convey this across the game’s varied environments, from ruins to forests to other areas. The game is being developed using the Luminous Engine, which was developed by Square Enix and Luminous Productions.

Speaking of the world of Forspoken, the developers talked a bit about the stage, but without revealing too much. When we meet Frey, she is having a difficult time in New York and promises her cat that they will soon end up in a better place. He is half right, as he achieves his wish to be free from the Big Apple, but falls through a portal to the strange land of Athia.

Frey, not alone, however, is joined by Cuff, a sensitive, talking golden bracelet that somehow wrapped around her right arm between the trip from New York to Athia. The developers said they couldn’t give details yet on the exact role that Cuff will play, only that it’s vital to the story and will help players reach their next goals. However, they said there will be a lot of jokes between the two. “They both speak their minds,” Mitsuno said. “This means they are fighting all the time.”

Athia, where Frey is now, was once a beautiful and peaceful land ruled by the Tantas. After an event that the developers did not disclose, the earth has turned into a harsh and cruel place. The aforementioned Tantas also seems to have gotten worse, as Frey is seen fighting a guy named Tanta Sila in the game’s trailer. Each of the Tantas has been designed with a specific feature in mind. Tanta Sila’s, for example, is strength, which is noticeable in his muscular arms.

Terada said that the team is in full production right now as they move towards the game’s release on PS5 and PC in spring 2022.

Jason Coskrey is a writer living in Tokyo. Find him on Twitter at @JCoskrey