When it releases early next year, Forspoken will only be the latest game to join the isekai genre, thanks to protagonist Frey Holland's roots in New York City. Frey's role as a fish out of water in Athia may not be an entirely original idea, but her origins in New York help to set her apart. That's why Forspoken needs to make sure that New York City gets a fair shake over the course of the story, even if Athia is dominant. In order to keep the story impactful, all sides of Frey's life need to be displayed front and center.
So far, most Forspoken marketing has focused on Frey's life in Athia. That's natural, considering just how much the magical new world has to offer her. Forspoken fans can look forward to leaping across all kinds of twisted, abandoned places that were touched by the Break, making them inhospitable to everyone but Frey and Cuff. Frey's desire to go home will conflict her duty to help Athia, and as the story progresses, she'll likely get more and more attached to this place. Nevertheless, Forspoken's story will be more compelling if Frey's old life is displayed for the player, rather than a nebulous goal that Frey hopes to attain.
How Forspoken Can Make Frey's Home Important
Forspoken footage implies that players will spend very little time in New York City. They might control Frey in NYC for the game's opening, seeing her usual haunts and old routine, but getting transported to Athia is the game's inciting incident, so it probably won't take long. Luminous Productions and Square Enix haven't suggested that players will see Frey's hometown very much after that point. On the contrary, much of Frey's character arc revolves around homesickness, so she probably won't get any brief visits to home that alleviate her tension along the way.
However, this character arc is exactly why Luminous Productions needs to show moments of Frey's old life throughout the game. It's clear that Frey has a complicated life in NYC, but in order for players to sympathize with Frey's homesickness, Luminous Productions should include flashbacks that show why she longs to return there, in spite of all the power and opportunities that Athia offers. Glimpses of friends she left behind, favorite places in New York, defining moments in her life, and so on will add more weight to Forspoken's central conflict and help players feel more motivated to get through the story.
Luminous Productions has quite a few options on how to handle any flashbacks in Forspoken. Occasional cutscenes where Frey reflects on the past would be the simplest route, but playable flashback vignettes could be a great reprieve from the high-stakes magical action in Forspoken. Players might feel even more invested in Frey's relationship with NYC if they get to interact with the past for themselves. The game could also provide a variety of reasons that these flashbacks happen, whether Frey opens up to Cuff or another NPC by telling a story from her past, or Frey finds a displaced object from Earth that reminds her of home.
Forspoken likely intends for Frey to find a new home as a hero of Athia, but only giving players a glimpse of her life in New York City risks cheapening that story. Confining Frey's old, difficult life to the opening hours of the game would make it all too clear that Frey is better off in Athia, and that she'll likely choose to stay. Rather than making her new life in Athia an obvious upgrade, Forspoken needs to put some real narrative weight behind the ultimate choice to return to Earth or stay in Athia, assuming that Frey gets that choice by the end of the game. Forspoken will be better off if it makes players care about both Earth and Athia, rather than privileging magic over the mundane.
Forspoken releases January 24, 2023 for PC and PS5.
