Forspoken has been in development for several years and has not been without its critics. Unfortunately, now that players have been able to test it, they found a flaw that is giving a lot to talk about and is losing the beauty it promised.

Square Enix revealed Project Athia in 2020 with a cool announcement trailer that introduced the fantastic world of Athia. Over time, the project got its official name Forspoken, but the change wasn’t the only thing that was changed, it included a visual downgrade.

As we told you a few days ago, the Forspoken demo is already available on PlayStation 5. Users have not missed the opportunity to try it out and have already done several performance tests on it.

Forspoken’s performance modes have given something to talk about

Frospoken has 3 performance modes. Quality mode offers better textures, draw distance, and the highest resolution (1728p on average).

Ray tracing mode, as the name implies, adds ray tracing to make the game look better or more realistic, but lowers the average resolution to 1512p, as well as draw distance and texture quality. Interestingly, this mode does not improve reflections or global illumination.

Performance mode offers the same as ray tracing, but without ray tracing, plus a lower resolution (dynamic 1440p with temporal reconstruction). Some analysis shows that the resolution can drop as low as 720p. The problem is that despite the concessions, it fails to maintain a stable 60fps, according to ElAnalistaDeBits.

Fans are not happy with Forspoken’s performance

What is striking is that it features a huge visual downgrade compared to the 2020 reveal trailer.

This is somewhat unfortunate, especially if we take into account that Takeshi Aramaki, game director, mentioned in an interview with VG247 that Forspoken was optimized for PlayStation 5 (with priority over PC) and that since the project’s conception they considered doing something that it would only work on the next-gen console: “So I don’t think it would have been possible to have Forspoken on PlayStation 4 in terms of the engine, graphics or anything we’re doing with gameplay,” said the creative.

The 2020 trailer shows more beautiful environments overall. Character models feature more detail, as well as better lighting and shadows. Instead, the demo running next to this trailer pales.

ElAnalistaDeBits made a comparison that in general shows how the demo has a closer draw distance and lower quality in textures and geometry; in fact, Frey’s ground attack animation is much less flashy in the demo compared to the original trailer, while the sky looks much hazier. The foregoing casts doubt on the potential of the Luminous Engine, which Square Enix presented years ago with a beautiful display of a dancer: “This is further proof of why Square Enix has migrated its Final Fantasy franchise to Unreal Engine,” commented ElAnalistaDeBits.

It is understood that what was shown in the reveal trailer was subject to change, but the modifications were so many that a large downgrade is evident, a practice that is common in the industry. The Forspoken demo appears to be an excerpt from the January final build. Given the closeness of the release date, it seems very difficult for Square Enix to make big performance improvements.

Have you played the Forspoken demo yet? What did you think of the downgrade? Tell us in the comments.

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