PS5 console exclusive Forspoken coming next year — here's your first look

Forspoken PS5 and PC exclusive
(Image credit: Square Enix)

PS5 players are in for a treat, with Square Enix dropping a new trailer for Forspoken, its upcoming action RPG game for PC and Sony's new console.  

First revealed last year under its working title Project Athia, Luminous Productions' debut game is set to be a timed PS5 console exclusive for two years before heading to the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S.

At its spring showcase event, Square Enix revealed how Forspoken follows the journey of Frey Holland as she traverses the land of Athia, and learns to wield her magical abilities. Those abilities look like they'll be sorely needed given the denizens roaming the world, which includes giant Skyrim-esque dragons.  

Judging by Frey's reaction to the dragon, and the sneakers she's wearing, we're guessing she's been dropped into Athia from a world not unlike ours. The PlayStation blog also hints at this, describing it as an "other-worldly adventure" that Frey – "an ordinary young woman" – has to survive; given that she'll be 'harnessing' her magical abilities, we're assuming they're fairly new. 

The trailer also shows off just how fast and efficiently Frey can move across the terrain, moving in huge leaps and bounds. Her journey is peppered with encounters ranging from wild animals to some pretty ghoulish-looking bipeds that could be mindless fodder for Frey to blast through, or fellow magic-users looking to ruin her day.

We're expecting some nifty utilization of the PS5 DualSense controller, with last year's PlayStation blog on the game highlighting how the developers are out to "fuse together the latest technologies with art," with Forspoken "making full use of the exciting potential of the PS5 hardware for this project."

Forspoken is coming to PC and PS5 in 2022, and that's about as narrow a launch window we're getting for now. 

Gamers on Microsoft's consoles will have to wait until 2024 for news of a release. In the meantime, you can check out our roundup of best PS5 games and best Xbox Series X games for stellar titles to keep you entertained until then.  

Shabana Arif

Shabana is T3's News Editor covering tech and gaming, and has been writing about video games for almost a decade (and playing them since forever). As well as contributing to Tom's Guide, she's had bylines at major gaming sites during her freelance career before settling down at T3, and has podcasts, streaming, and video content under her belt to boot. Outside of work, she also plays video games and should really think about expanding her hobbies.