Open world discourse is nothing new in the year of our lord 2023. Countless people on Twitter and IGN comment sections bemoan how all AAA games nowadays seem to be: “A sprawling handcrafted world.” And they’re right for the most part. In the last decade, we’ve had a slew of them, most likely inspired by the success of Skyrim in 2011, The Witcher 3 in 2015, Breath of the Wild in 2017, and now Elden Ring in 2022. Hell, that’s a slew of games right there in itself.
See that tower? You can climb it.
Game title: Forspoken
Developer: Luminous Productions
Price: $70
Platform: PC, PS5
These massive landmark titles were not only great but also changed the medium. So for many publishers aping what worked for these titles seems like a surefire win. Ubisoft has basically revolved its release state off of this mentality. Which is why all of these open world games are great right?
Forspoken represents all of the worst impulses of someone trying to replicate the success of other open world games. It has all the hallmarks. A massive world, varied locations, tons of dungeons, and a map littered with objectives. The whole kit and kaboodle! But it forgets the central tenet of what makes an open world game work: mystery.
There is no drive to pull you somewhere interesting because the game tells you immediately what it is on the map. Dungeons have new capes, towers have books, and towns have necklaces. Even if you were to forgo the map and chart your own path you’d still be coming across the same towns, the same towers, and the same dungeons. It doesn’t matter if you’re on the verdant green coast or in the harsh desert everything is the same just with different foliage. This goes even further with the dungeons which all share an identical layout and basically serve as two rooms of enemies between you and your +15% whatever new cape.
That 15% whatever cape is helpful in what is the most interesting thing about the game. A deep and engaging combat system based on shooting off a staggering amount of spells while magically free running through the environment. The sheer variety of what you can do is very cool, and the game does encourage you to experiment a lot with it and pull off insane combos. Even if it is against the most generic spongy or frail enemies you could imagine on your quest for more cape.
The first enemy is introduced in an early cutscene: a massive wolf with its stomach split open into a massive mouth with its ribs looking like teeth. A genuinely interesting design, but when it’s attacking it runs around and acts like a normal wolf. This is most of the game’s issues in a nutshell, banality wrapped up in the promise of something interesting.
None of this is bad, the game runs fine, and nothing is broken, but it isn’t fun and to quote one Monkey D. Luffy: “I don’t want to go on an adventure that isn’t fun.” What’s the point of a massive world if nothing is interesting? What’s the point of exploring if you know exactly what you’re going to get? One could argue that the journey is the reward, playing with the combat system and seeing the world, but at a point, that isn’t enough. A good adventure is its own reward, but you have to have something worth adventuring for.
The Final Word
If you really want to play it, maybe just throw on a podcast and mess around with the magic.
– MonsterVine Rating: 2 out of 5 – Poor
