![]() ![]() Athia was once a peaceful place ruled by four powerful women sorcerers known as the Tantas, but a couple of decades before Frey’s arrival, a magical corruption that twisted the living into monsters spread across the land. On the other side lies Athia, a beautiful yet desolate world. The portal pulls them both through and closes behind them. The birthday presents a local gang wants to give her are not so kind, leading to a series of events that leave Frey at rock bottom, only to find Cuff, a sentient piece of jewelry (or a vambrace as he calls himself), and a portal to another world. Luckily for her, a sympathetic judge lets her off with a warning as a birthday present. She has a problem with authority, and sometimes, it brings her into conflict with the law. Enter twenty-year-old Alfre “Frey” Holland, our protagonist. The chance it could ultimately be a mess makes it all the more enticing to review.įorspoken begins not in the mythical lands of Athia but in a New York City courthouse. A beautiful action RPG with an array of incredibly animated magical spells at my disposal, a diverse cast of characters, and breakneck open-world traversal? Sign me up. Personally, the appeal has never gone away. And yet, Forspoken’s marketing has struggled to find its footing and driven the online discourse in a surprisingly negative direction. Yes, there is some divisive sentiment, but anyone would expect a successor without XV’s troubled development to generate widespread excitement. And in a world that needs more black characters, latino characters, gay characters, etc., that would be a horrible shame.There is no denying that Luminous Studios’ Final Fantasy XV was an enormous success for Square Enix. Over the top reactions to awkward wording, like the ones found in this thread (but luckily not much elsewhere), will do nothing but make developers think twice before being inclusive, scared that they might accidentely offend someone for nothing more than phrasing. If we applied that line of thinking to everything, we are going to get a lot less representation than what is needed. The idea that, to have a black character in a video game, you have to have black writers is dumb. A black character doesn't NEED to have any specific attributes simply because they are black. They are not some sort of mysterious group that all have the same background, same story, etc. Black people are, believe it or not, just people. People are blowing this WAY out of proportion.Īnd I am confused at so many of the responses here. The wording is awkward but nothing more than that. ![]() The wince-inducing descriptions levied at the protagonist could have easily been avoided had anyone with melanin been given meaningful positions of power on the project. Sure, they have Black actors like Balinska and Janina Gavankar as antagonist Tanta Sila, but without Black writers or consultants featured prominently during the preview, the game didn’t come off well for me. When we have discussions about representation and changing the way games are made, it feels like they are often left at superficial changes, like the face on the game cover or a nearly interchangeable protagonist. While I don’t doubt that Luminous Productions consulted Black folks in how they went about creating Frey, being greeted by white writers, and only hearing about consultation from second-hand account didn’t do them any favors for me as a player who’s been starving for Black representation in games, both on-screen and in crafting their narratives. “We worked closely with a number of consultants from BIPOC backgrounds to help portray Frey’s character and tell the story from her perspective,” Square Enix said in the FAQ, adding that Forspoken’s supporting cast was “dominated by women and several women of color.” Sadly, its answer came off as a canned response that leaned heavily on the hands-off preview where Balinska’s “passionate” feedback throughout her motion capture process was regarded as “invaluable feedback” for the team. (Later on, he received an FAQ sheet that rounded up our media questions. When Axios’ Stephen Totilo asked if there were any Black developers or consultants involved with Forspoken in Square Enix’s video chat, he didn’t receive an answer during our preview. I wasn’t the only journalist to find Stashwick’s awkward remark and the lack of Black writers shown in our preview as harrowing. The cherry on top of my newfound dread was motion capture and voice over director Tom Keegan describing Balinska’s mannerisms during her motion capture performance as having a “very hip-hoppy kind of walk.” Those stereotypes included her “being very angry,” her having “fallen through cracks of society,” and being “on the verge of prison,” before being teleported to Athia. My newfound fears weren’t helped when Rymer and Stashwick described Frey’s origin story, which came off as a tired amalgamation of Black stereotypes. ![]()
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