Originally developed under the codename Project Athia and the first release from Square Enix’s Luminous Productions, Forspoken has a lot of the DNA of Square’s prior JRPG work albeit with Western twists. Based on a concept developed by video game writing vets Gary Whitta and Amy Hennig, and written by Allison Rymer and Todd Stashwick, Forspoken feels like an offshoot of Final Fantasy in many ways, which makes sense given the Luminous team boasts a lot of former Final Fantasy 15 devs. But in trying to deliver something new yet familiar, Forspoken devolves into a generic open world game whose combat system is its only genuine standout.