Among the many surprises in PlayStation's big showcase yesterday was that Forspoken, previously Project Athia, received a new gameplay trailer and early 2022 release date. Players step into the shoes of Frey, who has been magically transported away from Earth through a mysterious portal and must learn to survive and save the world of Athia. The trailer showed off snippets of just about every major facet of the game ranging from plot, exploration, and combat. The latter in particular appears very engaging, reminiscent of the Infamous series. In the trailer, it appears that Frey has the power to control many different elements such as fire, water, and earth.
If Forspoken really wants to set itself apart from other games in the open-world genre, then its combat should lean heavily into the mixing of elements in combat. Towards the end of the trailer, the game hints that this kind of elemental fusion will be possible, as Frey douses her enemy with water before freezing it. This mechanic could open the door to a deep and diverse combat system, especially if certain element-themed enemies have certain weaknesses and strengths. Furthermore, attaching a morality system to certain elements, similar to the karma system in Infamous, would allow Forspoken to bring its elemental mixing to an even deeper level of complexity.
Master the Elements in Forspoken
Ever since the initial teasers for what would become Forspoken, it's been clear that harnessing nature would be a key aspect of gameplay; not just for combat but also for traversing the vast open world. When jumping and gliding around like Jesse in Control, Frey appears to have earthy streaks around her shoes, suggesting that movement will also be elemental-based.
Perhaps investing in air element upgrades will allow Frey to fly for longer periods of time, or the element of fire can let her explore normally harmful areas. However, the ability to combine these elements was really striking within the trailer, so possibly Frey could combine water and fire to create a steam jet and get a ton of upward velocity, once again aiding her exploration. Customization and progression could expand Frey's elemental abilities even further.
As of right now, there are a lot of unknowns when it comes to Forspoken. It's unclear how many elements Frey can control, and to what extent her powers can go. Will Forspoken have a skill-tree system like so many other open-world games? Or will it have story-based progression instead? As the Forspoken release date gets closer, these things will likely be revealed. However, one thing seems pretty clear right now: Forspoken could be a really fun power trip.
Giving players the freedom to not just explore the open world, but also mix and match their elements within combat, would be a really great move for Forspoken. It would allow for a lot of diversity for how each player's Frey will control. Entombing someone in the rocky earth before eroding it with water abilities is sure to feel very different from setting an enemy ablaze. As mentioned above, it would add another layer of depth if combining certain elements allowed for the usage of normally unobtainable elements such as steam and ice.
Type-Matchups in Forspoken
Upon hearing about elements, some people might think of the Pokemon series' type-matchups where fire beats grass, grass beats water, and water beats fire types. If Forspoken really leans into the elements being a part of every game system, then it would be unsurprising to see certain enemies have weaknesses and strengths against Frey's abilities.
In the trailer, there are a couple brief seconds where Frey is fighting a massive fire-breathing dragon. It would be a very interesting decision should Square Enix make this dragon, at the very least, resistant to Frey's fire-based attacks. This would force the player to stay on their toes and not just keep using the same moves every time they enter combat.
Expanding on this idea, there may be pieces of equipment that Frey can use to boost her water abilities while making her weaker to fire, for example. This would add further complexity to the moment-to-moment combat, especially if certain enemies have a weakness to an element that can only be created through the combination of two "base" elements such as fire and earth. Forspoken has gone through a lot of changes already, however, so this type of combat design doesn't seem too outlandish.
Elements as Morality in Forspoken
As Forspoken seems to be drawing on Sucker Punch Studios' Infamous series for some inspiration, especially when it comes to combat, it would be a great move to also borrow that series' "karma" morality system. In Infamous, every action and decision the player makes can either give them positive or negative karma. Having a lot of either also affects the player's abilities; being a selfish person leads to less control over the powers and much more collateral damage.
Within Forspoken, it would be really interesting to see not only base elements have morality tied to them, but also all the possible combinations of moral conundrums. Perhaps using a lot of fire abilities will cause NPCs to begin to fear Frey, while water may have a calming effect on them and the world. There may be certain combinations that have an even greater moral value, such as the showcased ice abilities which may not even kill the enemies, only freeze them in stasis.
This is, admittedly, somewhat of a longshot to appear in Forspoken, but it goes to show just how far a single idea like elemental combinations can be taken. However, given the comparisons to the Infamous series, Forspoken has the chance to take that karma system to the next level of complexity, especially combined with Pokemon-style type-matchups. The open world genre should be all about giving players the freedom and ability to do whatever they want, and this should apply to combat through the mixing of various elements to cause either mass destruction and hysteria, or the ability to bring peace to Athia.
Forspoken is set to release in early 2022 for PC and PS5.