Cognition Dissemination: A Forspoken Conundrum

A good deal of information was provided about Forspoken in the last week. This is an upcoming action RPG from Square Enix’s Luminous Studio, a subdivision of the company formed by the Final Fantasy XV team (with its director, Hajime Tabata, departing to found his own studio) after that game released, a title very much crafted for western sensibilities. Its premise involves New Yorker protagonist Frey (played by Ella Balinska, who is British) being sucked into the mysterious land of Athia. She’ll use her newfound magical abilities to mend the land’s troubles while she searches for a way back home.

The gaming press highlighted the positive traits and issues with Forspoken in previews, but details from them were overpowered by other talk around the game — for good reason. The way Square Enix has presented and described parts of its story concepts have been problematic, a fine representation of casual racism.

In complementing Balinksa in her role, motion capture and voice over director Tom Keegan described her as giving Frey a “very hip-hoppy kind of walk.” This is… well, I don’t know what the hell he could possibly be referring to here outside the obvious. This raised the collective eyebrows of several people who were in the room when it was uttered.

There’s also the concept that describes Frey as being a “very angry person” who’s “fallen through the cracks of society” and was “on the verge of prison” before being transported to Athia. It’s a generic and stereotypical origin story for a young Black character, especially one from the United States. The narrative was notably crafted by Gary Whitta (Telltale’s The Walking Dead, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story) and Amy Henning (Legacy of Kain, the Uncharted series) during pre-production, with the script being crafted by Allison Rymer and Todd Stashwick (the latter of whom was working on Uncharted 4 but left during development). That all-white creative talent is writing for a black character has led to justifiable concerns, and can lead to moments of awkwardness and unintentional implications.

As a way to damage control this, Square Enix provided an FAQ to the press that described Balinska’s “passionate” feedback and how the team is working with several consultants with BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) backgrounds. They noted how the game’s cast will be full of people of color characters. The racism here is far from overt, and is already leading to people (who are largely, of course, white) wondering what the big deal is. This is how casual racism works: It comes off as ignorant and insensitive instead of malicious, regardless of whether the perpetrators intend for that effect.

This is all unfortunate because Forspoken is set to have the best representation for people of color I’ve seen in an action RPG. You could likely count the number of video games with African-American female protagonists that don’t have character creators on one hand, with fingers left over if we’re only discussing big-budget works. Yet, Balinska in this game is clearly Black as Frey, and talent like the omnipresent Debra Wilson is involved.

Forspoken set to have solid representation in a story genre that’s been terrible with it. “Isekai” works largely involve characters being transported to another world, yet most human characters already inhabiting those worlds tend to be white or have light skin — including background characters. Consider how difficult it is to think of other isekai works with black or dark-skinned main characters; the only one that came to my mind quickly was Black Knight with Martin Lawrence, a movie with a heavy comedy bend from two decades ago. That Forspoken is making sure to have the kind of representation these works usually don’t include is commendable. This is why the casual racism that’s just emerged around it sucks shit that much more.

Fortunately, it’s not bad enough to write the game off, though it says something that Square Enix needed to include the aforementioned damage-controlling canned PR statement in their FAQ. Everything should be fine as long as the team is on their best behavior from here. That’s not too much to ask.

It will be much worse for the representation on display if the game itself doesn’t turn out well, and previews form last week included causes for concern. Gamespot mentioned how the game’s world of Athia “seems empty of meaningful things to go find and do, beyond fighting different enemies.” This is on clear display in the four-minute gameplay video originally posted by IGN, which they later made private because it didn’t seem like the kind that a publisher would allow the press to simply post. (It would have made its way onto the internet by someone else eventually.) If there’s anything that would make it feel like a true FFXV spiritual successor, it’s this. The game’s performance also appears messy despite it running on one of the most powerful gaming platforms around, but those could be ironed out during the final polishing stages. Cross your fingers and hope they simply chose a bad section to demonstrate.

Square Enix confirmed that Forspoken is planned for release on May 25th for PlayStation 5 and PC at The Game Awards. They will undoubtedly ensure that further PR missteps aren’t made, perhaps to the point of carefully controlling interviews. Neither the game itself or its remaining marketing should trip and fall into a river of stereotypes while, well, hip hopping or whatever to the release date.