author: Zuzanna Domeradzka
Square Enix Prepares for Another Flop? Forspoken Disappoints on PC
Two days have passed since the release of Forspoken - how does this game, which was not very warmly received by reviewers, do on PCs? How does it perform and what do the players think of it?
Forspoken made its debut on January 24 on the PlayStation 5 console and PCs. This action game with RPG elements from the makers of Final Fantasy XV has become object of derision even before its release, and additionally did not encourage with excessive system requirements. After all, the work of the Luminous Productions did not delight the reviewers (the average rating is 67% out of 72 reviews for the PS5 version), and the opinion of players is pretty much the same. Let's take a look at how the PC version of the title is doing.
Interest vs. ratings
Many gamers in their reviews are very critic about Forspoken. Just take a look at the game's rating on Metacritic - it stands at 2.3/10 (based on more than 100 reviews). The version for PS5 doesn't fare much better at all, as in this case the average rating given by players is 3.9/10. Forspoken on Steam, on the other hand, has "mixed" reviews - 52% of the 2536 written comments are positive..
Critics in their pre-release texts complained primarily about the cliche nature of the game, as well as the world, which does not encourage exploration. The players themselves (we take into account primarily reviews on Steam) additionally point to the problem of mediocre plot and characters that are difficult to sympathize with. But the biggest problem with Forspoken, which crosses out the whole game for many people at the start, appears to be its prohibitive price.
This is because you have to pay $69.99 for the basic edition, and $94.99 for Deluxe (which includes, among other things, an DLC). And it's worth noting that the title is not a long one - completing the storyline at an average pace can take a little over 15 hours, and side quests will provide some additional 5h of fun (via HowLongToBeat).
And although player ratings are mixed, the Forspoken on PCs is not doing tragically. On Steam it remains on the bestseller list, and on average several thousand people are playing the game at the same time; the current record - which will probably increase over the weekend - is 9.7 thousand players at once (via SteamDB).
The number of people playing Forspoken on Steam.Source: SteamDB.
Technical problems
Many people are also complaining about the optimization of Forspoken. The fault may lie largely with the anti-piracy protection Denuvo. Some claim that even on powerful hardware with an SSD drive, it takes them a good few seconds to load a map, and up to dozens to load a game save. The problem was described by, among others, PC Invasion.
A sizable number of players also draw attention to the graphics of Forspoken - some appreciate it, while others are disturbed by the frequently loading textures. Its comparison is available in the video shared by the channel ElAnalistaDeBits (below).
Forspoken can be considered an average item, certainly this first major release of 2023 was not a great success... and Square Enix (the publisher) will apparently come again to announce the disappointment on the occasion of the publication of the upcoming financial report. You can judge the game yourself by downloading its demo, which is available both on PC and PS Store.
