Srinanda Bhattacharyya
Mar, 10.2023
In an earnings report, Square Enix commented on the Forspoken launch sales, describing them as underwhelming. The action-adventure game Forspoken was released on PS5 and PC in January 2023 to mixed reviews and was created by Luminous Studios, the Final Fantasy 15 production team.
Forspoken on the PS5 presently has a Metacritic score of 64, but the user score is much lower at 3.5. Forspoken received criticism for its unoriginal open environment, unpolished gameplay mechanics, and uninspired narrative. Publisher Square Enix has now provided insight into Forspoken's market performance in the first months of 2023 by commenting on the game's debut sales. Yosuke Matsuda, president of Square Enix, reportedly described Forspoken's sales as disappointing despite asserting that the game's parkour and fighting mechanics had gotten excellent reviews. The same story highlights Luminous Studios, the company that developed Forspoken, and reiterates that it will combine with Square Enix starting on May 1, 2023.
It may be difficult to pin the poor launch sales of Forspoken on a single event because there may be several other factors at play. To begin with, Forspoken debuted in a busy month given that January 2023 also saw the release of Dead Space, One Piece Odyssey, Monster Hunter Rise on the current-generation console, and ports of Persona 4 Golden and Persona 3 Portable.
In December 2022, Square Enix also unveiled a surprise demo for Forspoken that gave players a chance to try out the gameplay elements. Regrettably, this Forspoken sample received negative feedback from several fans for having extremely high PC system requirements and being significantly fuzzy in performance mode on the PS5. Finally, Forspoken received a few evaluations before it was released, which occasionally suggests that the publisher did not have enough faith in the finished product.
According to some players who posted critical reviews of the game online to voice their complaints, Forspoken may rank as one of the most underwhelming AAA titles of 2023 overall. Forspoken received a rating bomb on Metacritic, with many users criticising the narrative and Frey's portrayal as the story's protagonist. It should be mentioned that some fans did mention a few nice qualities, such as the Forspoken game's combat and navigational systems, but it doesn't appear like these were sufficient to make up for the drawbacks.