As spotted by Gematsu mere hours ahead of the start of The Game Awards, the PlayStation Japanese Twitter account mistakenly revealed that Square Enix will release a demo of the upcoming RPG, Forspoken, on Saturday, December 10. This would imply that Forspoken will at least be a part of The Game Awards. Naoki Yoshida, who is affectionately referred to by fans as Yoshi-P, will be at The Game Awards to play host to a special presentation. Most believe this is exclusively for Final Fantasy 16 but it’s also possible Square Enix might try to squeeze in games like Forspoken and perhaps even Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth as well. However, PlayStation also confirmed that it will host an 11-minute gameplay showcase for the combat system of Forspoken on Friday, December 9, so it could announce the demo by then.
— Gematsu (@gematsu) December 8, 2022 Luminous Productions is the primary development studio tasked to clean house and make do with the convoluted mess that was Final Fantasy 15. While the most recent installment in the storied RPG franchise sold more than 10 million copies worldwide, the studio deemed it a failure due to how long the development took. Structural changes within Square Enix also forced Luminous Productions to drop its plans to make future DLCs for FF15 following the success of the initial trio of post-launch content. As a result, the complete story of FF15 can only be told by playing through the campaign, the DLCs, and reading the related novel. With that said, Forspoken sports similar graphical fidelity to Final Fantasy 15 as both games are made using Square Enix’s proprietary engine, the Luminous Engine. As Square Enix’s first unique property in several years, Forspoken can benefit a lot from a free demo. Fingers crossed, it will be released over the weekend and help convince gamers to give Forspoken a try when it comes out on January 24 following an earlier delay to avoid clashing with God of War: Ragnarok, one of this year’s GOTY nominees. Speaking of Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origins, Team Ninja’s Final Fantasy game is set to get its third DLC, Different Future, some time in the future. The first two, Trials of the Dragon King and Wanderer of the Rift, were released earlier this year.
