After the release of Final Fantasy XV, Square Enix’s internal studio, Luminous Productions, has been hard at work crafting a new game to showcase the Luminous Engine's capabilities. Enter Forspoken, a magic-packed open-world action RPG that drops a hapless New York teen into the supernatural world of Athia to fend for her life.
Armed with magical sapient bangles and newfound spell-casting abilities, protagonist Frey must travel across the ravished realm in search of a way home. Read on to see if your PC can handle the eye-dazzling magical splendor in store with Forspoken.
What Can You Expect From Forspoken?
Despite its magic-casting focus, Forspoken is a fast-paced action game. Magic in role-playing games tend to be either slow, ungainly abilities with lengthy charging times, or piddling point-and-click projectiles. Neither system feels satisfying to use in practice, especially if the RPG in question offers viable melee builds.
Forspoken throws these conventions out the window and incorporates magic into all aspects of its combat. Conjure a fiery blade and slap a zombie with it, or turn it into a spear to harpoon a ranged foe. Pepper targets with stone shrapnel, or hurl an explosive bomb that erupts into stalagmite. Engulf the battlefield in flames to buff yourself, or pull targets into a swirling storm of ice. Abilities are mapped to buttons that you can tap or hold for different effects. You can swap between ability sets on the fly, and even modify which spells you can use during combat via a scroll wheel.
If nothing else, the unique magical systems at play should keep you interested and engaged for a solid length of time. Still, Forspoken offers a robust game world to explore, packed with treasures to find, upgrades to collect, and challenges to complete.
Where Can I Buy Forspoken?
On PC, you can buy Forspoken via Epic Games Store or Steam for $69.99 starting Jan. 24. Forspoken is an exclusively next-generation release, so it is only available on the PlayStation 5 and PC. That said, let's take a look at the PC system requirements.
What Are Forspoken's Minimum System Requirements?
- OS: Windows 10 (64-bit)
- CPUCPU: AMD Ryzen 5 1600 or Intel Core i7-3770
- MemoryMemory: 16GB RAM
- GPUGPU: AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT or Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060
- DirectX: Version 12
- Available Storage: 150GB
With these minimum specs, you can expect to play the game at 720p resolution at 30 frames per second.
What Are Forspoken's Recommended System Requirements?
- OS: Windows 10 (64-bit)
- CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 or Intel Core i7-8700
- Memory: 24GB RAM
- GPU: AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT or Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070
- DirectX: Version 12
- Available Storage: 150GB
With this setup, you can expect to play the game at 1440p resolution at 30fps.
What Are the Forspoken Ultra System Requirements?
- OS: Windows 10 (64-bit)
- CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5800X or Intel Core i7-12700K
- Memory: 32GB RAM
- GPU: AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT or Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080
- DirectX: Version 12
- Available Storage: 150GB
With this PC rig, you can expect to play at 2160p (4K) resolution at 60fps.
Some Thoughts on Forspoken's System Requirements
These are surprisingly demanding system requirements; 16GB of RAM is a fairly high total for base specs, considering that the game only displays at 720p/30fps. Even more surprising are the recommended requirements that ask for powerful GPUs, but only promise 1440p/30fps. More alarming, 60fps is the exclusive playground of top-tier PC builds.
However, that may be due to Forspoken being the first PC game to fully support Microsoft's DirectStorage tech, which promises to deliver super-fast load times.
How Can You Play Forspoken?
Forspoken is optimized for controllers, but you can expect keyboard and mouse controls on PC. The extent to which these controls can be customized is unknown yet. Likewise, Steam Deck compatibility has not yet been revealed.
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