On the occasion of a podcast dedicated to the writing of the games, screenwriter Gary Whitta revealed that Forspoken was initially supposed to be a very different project from the one we know today.
Available from January 24, Forspoken was supposed to be one of the biggest releases of early 2023. Unfortunately, the title of Luminous Productions struggled to find its audience, who had many things to reproach him for. Beyond the design of its open world or the repetitiveness of its experience, it is in particular his writing that has cruelly disappointed gamers., despite the presence of big names like Amy Hennig at the helm. But it turns out that the game wasn’t always as we know it today.
Forspoken’s story wasn’t always the one we know
Indeed, interviewed by Alanah Pearce as part of her Video Game Writing 101 podcast (via GamesRadar+), Gary Whitta has revealed that the final version of Forspoken has nothing to do with the one he worked on early in development.. The screenwriter, who is now credited as the original designer, explained that he was approached by Square Enix five or six years ago. At the time, The publisher then asked him to help develop the concept of the game.who was now only a “seed of idea”.
At the head of a team of writers, he had brought the world of Athia to life, for which he had notably imagined a whole mythology and a story. But a few months later, Square Enix finally came back to him to say that the project would be completely restarted.. That’s when the version of the game we know today was born, with the story of this young woman from the real world who suddenly finds herself immersed in a fantasy realm.
Then he indicates that he did not participate in the design of the latter, for lack of compatibility in his schedule: “I did some basic worldbuilding stuff in the early days of Forspoken, but never wrote a single line of dialogue”. And while he unfortunately didn’t go into detail about his core work, he did indicate that Athia’s name, for example, is one of his rare contributions that was kept in the final version. of the game. Hopefully one day we will have the opportunity to know more about this preview version.
As a reminder, Forspoken is now available exclusively on PS5 and PC.