Three Red Flags PS5’s ‘Forspoken’ Has Raised Already

Forspoken is a soon-to-be-released blockbuster title from Square Enix, one that represents a major console exclusive for PS5 in 2023. But I am starting to grow increasingly skeptical of this game, as every day feels like it’s bringing some new red flag.

Specifically, there seem to be three different points of concern that make me wonder how Forspoken is actually going to play at release.

First, we are now six days away from the game’s release date on January 24. So far as I can tell, press do not have review copies of the game in-hand yet. That is…pretty unusual. Forspoken does not seem like an especially small game, so even if copies go out literally today, that is going to be some serious, crammed-in playtime to hit an embargo that’s what, launch day? The day before?

There are usually only two reasons something like this happens, neither of them good. Either a company is trying to downplay early reviews by dropping them as close to release as possible to maximize pre-orders, or they are literally working on fixing the game up until the moment it’s out and as such, press are receiving review codes late. In this case it’s not just a late embargo, it’s that with under a week till launch codes aren’t even out yet, which is the weirder thing here.

Second, the demo. The demo has…not gone great. While it’s nice to have a demo at all in this day and age, reception for what’s been playable has generally not been all that positive. In response to negative feedback, Square Enix issued a patch for the demo last night to fix some issues. On the one hand, you can say that’s a nice commitment to fixing what’s broken. On the other, it seems somewhat concerning to be issuing a patch for a demo when the full release of the game is in six days. If there’s this much wrong with the demo, what’s the state of the full game, exactly?

Finally, the PC specs. Good lord, what happened here? These were just issued yesterday and they scream a game that has been poorly optimized from top to bottom. The “Recommended” specs are 24 GB of RAM and a 3070 for just 30 fps gameplay. That’s hilariously terrible. Ultra specs demand a 4080(!) and 32 GB(!!) of RAM, which I cannot say I have ever seen before, and then, hopefully, that will get you to 60 fps. Oh and did I mention the 150 GB of SSD space you need too?

I have a bad feeling about this. Some of the later trailers convinced me maybe Forspoken would turn out okay (once they shed the goofy voiceovers), but there’s too much weirdness going on here to feel like this launch is going to go well and the game is going to launch in the state it should be in. I guess we’ll find out in less than a week. Reviewers too, perhaps, at this rate.

Follow me on Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. Subscribe to my free weekly content round-up newsletter, God Rolls.

Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.