FSR 3, AMD’s framerate-roiding answer to DLSS 3 frame generation, is ready to roll in its first supporting games. Great! Except these are currently limited to tedious magic shooters Forspoken and Immortals of Aveum, which is less great.
Regardless, this could be a major moment for basically any modern graphics card that isn’t an Nvidia RTX 40 series model. FSR 3’s Fluid Motion Frames system works in a broadly similar manner to DLSS 3, piecing together whole new frames outside of the usual GPU rendering pipeline and slipping them onto your screen between the 'real' frames. The result (in theory – I’ll be trying FSR 3 out in depth next week) is higher FPS with no extra strain on your PC, and unlike Nvidia’s frame generation, it doesn’t need any specialist hardware to work. Therefore older cards, as well as recent AMD GPUs like the RX 7700 XT and RX 7800 XT, could get a new lease of life in games that support it.
]]>Much maligned action-adventure Forspoken gets DLC this Friday. Before that, Square Enix have released a patch for the base game which, among other things, adjusts the "frequency and content of the banter" between Frey and her magical pal Cuff.
]]>"It already seems inevitable that there will be stories two weeks from now about how Forspoken failed to meet Square Enix's sales expectations," I wrote as the demo for the Isekai romp arrived on PC. How wrong I was! It took six and a half weeks.
"Reviews of Forspoken... have been challenging," says Square Enix's latest financial report, and its sales have been "lackluster".
]]>Whomst among us hasn't dreamt of somehow being transported to a magical world, where there are talking unicorns, and you can throw lightning and control plants because you are this universe's very special hero? Such is the fate of Frey, who falls through a portal into Athia and finds that world in mortal peril. Although if I were here I'd be a bit disappointed. It's all very well being able to zoom around doing magic parkour everywhere, but there isn't much to do or many places to go. Not a single talking unicorn to be seen.
Forspoken is somehow both full and devoid of content. There is a huge open world, but it is mostly empty. There is an epic story of magic, other universes, and saving the world, but it only takes up a couple of days. I actually enjoyed a lot of Forspoken, but it gets more fun the more you play, and then it's over; I didn't pre-order this game for sixty odd quid, and if I had I'd be disappointed. Even the much-Tweeted about annoying dialogue doesn't happen much, and isn't contextually annoying. Forspoken is annoying, though, just not in the ways you might expect if all you've seen is people discussing out-of-context clips from cutscenes.
]]>It turns out Forspoken has bigger problems than some badly-landing bantz. The PC version absolutely brutalises low-end hardware, an issue compounded by its high yet often unhelpful system requirements, and framerate drops and stuttering remain common even on some of the best graphics cards around. Your best chance of a smooth ride in Forspoken lies in lowering some graphics options, so I’ve been trying them all out to see which are the best settings to cut down – as well as which ones you can afford to keep high.
]]>What is the best cloak in Forspoken? Cloaks are a key component of protagonist Frey's gear in Forspoken. As perhaps the most traditional armor pieces Frey wears, it should come as no surprise that the status buffs and benefits conveyed by wearing cloaks are often defensive in nature, although this is not exclusively the case.
]]>What is the best necklace in Forspoken? Forspoken protagonist Frey is notable for having unusual gear. Forget helmets and armor, this modern New Yorker gets her nails done when she needs a useful combat buff. Similarly, Frey's choice of necklace has a surprisingly important role to play in her loadout: far more than just an accessory, these jewels in fact grant Frey a variety of status buffs and other unique benefits when she wears them.
There are a lot of necklaces in Forspoken, and Frey only has one neck, so choosing the best necklace for your playstyle requires a bit of thought. On this page, we've listed every Forspoken necklace along with its effects and unlock conditions, to help you pick the best necklace gear for you.
]]>Which are the best nails in Forspoken? If Forspoken has just one truly original and cool idea, it's surely the use of protagonist Frey's nail art to grant combat buffs and other unique benefits. Sod applying a new plate armour that's a 5% darker shade of tarnished silver than the old one. In this high fantasy setting, we're painting our nails with magical sigils, and I love it.
Frey's nails are more than just pretty accessories though, since each design has its own effects. They're a key component of Frey's gear, and so it's a good idea to know how best to use them to optimise her loadout. On this page, we'll go over all the nail designs in Forspoken, along with detailing how to apply them and how to unlock more.
]]>Thanks to the joys of late code delivery, a few of us are just now getting to grips with talkative Squeenix ARPG Forspoken. While Alice Bee hammers her review together, I’ve been on my usual hardware bullshit, mainly investigating the peculiar system requirements that were released last week.
These aren’t just an odd collection of specs because of the sheer weight and breadth of their demands; they also overtly target resolutions and framerates that hardly anyone is going to be engaging with. Who on desktop plays at 1280x720? Fewer than 0.3% of Steam users, apparently. And personally, if I’ve spent the cash on a 1440p gaming monitor, I probably wouldn’t be satisfied to watch it display my games at just 30fps. I’ve therefore been finding out what PC hardware Forspoken actually needs to run both smoothly and at more realistic resolutions. Maybe then we can update those system requirements to create some very-much-unofficial, but hopefully more useful, spec guidelines.
]]>It seemed a shame, given Forspoken's somewhat unusual system requirements, that its demo remained unavailable on PC. Well, that's no longer the case. As of today, you can now give Square Enix's Cuff-ing season action-adventure a whiz before you decide whether you want to pay £65/$70 for it.
]]>There’s a new Nvidia GeForce Game Ready Driver out, and for once it sounds pretty interesting – especially if you’re lucky/rich/unhinged enough to have dropped megabucks on one of Nvidia’s megabucks RTX 40 series GPUs.
The 528.24 WHQL driver is mainly aimed at tuning up GeForce graphics cards for imminent PC releases Forspoken, the Dead Space remake, and Deliver Us Mars. All three will include DLSS support, which might come in handy for Forspoken in particular, given its slightly bananas system requirements. But 528.24 will also get Hitman 3 and Marvel’s Midnight Suns ready for DLSS 3 upgrades, with both games set to gain support for the overhauled upscaler in forthcoming patches.
]]>You may have already heard that several outlets haven't had review code for Forspoken, Squeenix's magical parkour isekai game that's out today and that some people have already decided they hate because of the dialogue. I was actually pretty excited to review the game, and was hopeful that the dialogue would make sense and work in context. But unfortunately we, too, are one of the outlets who don't have code, so no PC review from us for a while.
Like many others - and you too, if you've got a PS5 - I've been able to play the free Forspoken demo, which plops you into the game after the opening bumf, and presumably the cutscene where Frey establishes her modern girl "lemme get this straight?!" credentials. And you know what? I don't hate it!
]]>What time does Forspoken release? Forspoken launches on January 24th as the new action-RPG from the makers of Final Fantasy 15, and as you might expect, that comes with a mixed bunch of expectations and concerns going in. I personally am quite fond of the adventures of Noctis and pals, but admit that Forspoken's self-consciously quippy dialogue and baffling system requirements had me feeling a little ambivalent.
Having played the PS5 demo, though, I think this game's got potential, but I'm keen to get my hands on the full release on PC before I make up my mind. And I'm sure many of our readers are too! Read on below for a full run-down of preload and unlock times for Forspoken, so that you can begin your journey through the land of Athia as soon as you possibly can.
]]>Steam's most recent hardware survey says that 65% of PC players use 1080p, but you wouldn't know it to look at Forspoken's system requirements which benchmark the game against 720p 30fps (minimum), 1440p 30fps (recommended) and 2160p 60fps (ultra).
Regardless of what kind of performance you're aiming for, you'll need a pretty beefy machine, with 24GB of RAM and an RTX 3070 required to hit those recommended specs.
]]>Last month CJ reported that we might see a demo for Forspoken, Square Enix's upcoming action RPG with magic-infused parkour. A demo did indeed come out in December, but only on PS5 - and to very mixed reviews. It's a shame, because the world on show in its latest cinematic trailer looks appetisingly stylish.
The game comes out on January 24th, so we'll know for sure soon enough.
]]>A gameplay stream for Square Enix’s fantasy action RPG Forspoken has been dated for December 9th, but PlayStation Japan have tweeted an image that suggested a demo announcement will feature as part of that. Although the tweet’s been deleted since, user Renka_schedule was able to take a screengrab. You’ll be able to tune in to the Game Awards-adjacent Forspoken stream at 6pm GMT/7pm CET/10am PT, and presumably find out more about the demo during it.
]]>Square Enix have given us another look at Forspoken, the open world action RPG slated for release on January 24th 2023. The latest deep dive trailer details the game’s magical parkour abilities that you’ll be using to get across the fantasy realm of Athia. Forspoken’s flashy, stamina-based movement is by far the most distinctive thing about it in my eyes, so let's take a look at Frey's parkour abilities below.
]]>Fantasy action RPG Forspoken has been delayed more times than most games, although it’s finally pencilled in for a January release date. We’re still quite a way off from then, but Sony have released a smattering more gameplay footage today, detailing the moves you'll be pulling as heroine Frey "I'm seeing freaking dragons" Holland. Alas, said footage has been crushed down to only a handful of GIFs over on the PlayStation Blog, but our friends at Eurogamer have a bigger, chunkier hands on preview that tells us more about why it won't be mega cringe. Alas, we weren't privy to this Forspoken demo, so have a watch with us below.
]]>Some of the early trailers for Forspoken, a Squeenix action-adventure/RPG epic coming in January, suggested portentious world-saving stuff. This is a different vibe to a clip shared on Forspoken's offical Twitter this week, which featured main character Frey Holland doing a "Yup, that's me!" kind of elevator pitch for the game. A lot of people on the birdsite took an instant, vehement dislike to Frey's dialogue, and were just as instantly sure who to blame for the peachy keen quiplashing, even if by proxy. Yes, Joss Whedon strikes again.
]]>Square Enix have announced another delay for their open-world action-adventure game Forspoken by three months. It was due out on 11th October later this year, but has now been pushed back to the 24th January 2023. They say it just needs a bit more polishing up before it arrives, which is fine by me. I mean, no point rushing something out before it's ready is there?
]]>Square Enix this week announced a four-and-a-bit-month delay for Forspoken, the open-world action-adventure game about a New Yorker pulled into a fantasy world. Previously due on the 24th of May, it's now slated for the 11th of October. Sounds like Squeenix hope to make it the start of a new series, so they're taking time to help ensure it's proper good. Fair enough.
]]>2022 is finally here and that can only mean one thing. We've got another year of hip new video games to look forward to, and we've been busy rustling up the ones we're most excited about. In truth, there are tons of games on the horizon that could easily sit on this list, and some of them are so close to release we can practically already see the pixels on our screens morphing into their lush, polygonal landscapes. Games like Monster Hunter Rise, God Of War and Rainbow Six Extraction. You won't find them here, but trust us, you'll be seeing a lot of them over the coming weeks.
There are always more games coming out than we have fingers to write about them, but the 2022 games we've listed below are the ones the RPS team are personally most looking forward to playing. We've got games big and small here, and they're all listed in alphabetical order. After all, release dates are increasingly slippery beasts these days. Think we've missed something? Why not take to the comments below and tell us all about it. You might just convince us to put it on our radars. But enough from me. Here are our 43 most anticipated games of 2022.
]]>Forspoken, a game whose name I will never pronounce correctly but was once known as Project Athia, finally has a concrete release date. Announced tonight at The Game Awards, Square Enix's big action RPG adventure will be hitting PC on May 24th 2022. I guess that technically still counts as 'spring' and therefore doesn't constitute a delay on its previous launch window, but it sure is a lot closer to summer than I was expecting. In any case, there's a shiny new trailer with some very hammy villains to enjoy at the same time.
]]>During tonight's PlayStation livestream, we got a longer look at Square Enix's Forspoken. It's a third-person, open world action game in which you can go free running across a fantasy world, but the new trailer focuses on combat and on protagonist
]]>Square Enix have spent the past year occassionally teasing a new game codenamed Project Athia. Now we know it's actual name - Forspoken - and there's a new trailer below that introduces its protagonist. Which is all well and good, but the real stand-out here is its magical free-running movement.
]]>Square Enix's Luminous Productions studio are keeping their mysterious game Project Athia under wraps for now, but they have revealed more of the technology it's built on, the Luminous Engine. At a Japanese conference this week, the gang of former Final Fantasy XV folks gave a talk including a demonstration of its world editor, and they've kindly put it on YouTube for all to see. If you like tech demo videos where landscapes rise up and flora sprouts with a sweep of the cursor, you might enjoy their pretty little woodland.
]]>Tonight during Sony's big PlayStation 5 stream, Square Enix announced a surprise game codenamed Project Athia. Details are hazy (heck, even the name is hazy) but it looks like an action-adventure game with magical powers, big monsters, and the ability to parkour at great speed over pretty landscapes. I'm in. While the initial announcement only mentioned PS5, Squeenix have since confirmed it's coming to PC too. See the swish trailer below.
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