Geek Interview: The Journey Into The Unknown With Luminous Productions And Forspoken

Striking out on your own can be a daunting thing, but for Luminous Productions, the pressure was even higher considering, its initial charge of creating AAA video games as a subsidiary of Square Enix. Now, three years on, and we have finally seen the fruits of the team’s labour in the form of action role-playing title, Forspoken.

Ahead of the game’s excellent showing at The Game Awards 2021, we sat down to talk with Forspoken Co-Director Takefumi Terada and Creative Producer Raio Mitsuno, and learn more about what Luminous Productions is bringing to the AAA table with their first outing this coming 24 May.

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It all began with the Luminous Engine, the underlying game engine that will power the company’s next generation of games. We first caught a glimpse of it at E3 2012 and once more in 2015 via the Agni’s Philosophy tech demos, so after having built such a solid foundation, fans will finally experience the fruits of their labour in the form of Forspoken.

As if to truly separate itself from how things were done in the past, Forspoken is a cross-cultural creation, bringing together the best creative minds with eastern and western influences, and that was a vital part of development.

As Mitsuno explained, “One of the things you want to do from the very get-go was to create a brand new world with a lot of strong female characters, along with our strong female protagonist. And in doing so, we also evaluated the strengths of our own studio, we looked at our strengths, we looked at our weaknesses.”

“We thought the best way to do that was to team up with creative minds in the West. We’ve worked with Gary Whitta (Rogue One), we worked with Amy Hennig (Uncharted) to craft the world and the story. We wanted to create this world that appeals to a broad audience. It wasn’t about necessarily not wanting to do things a certain way or wanting to be a certain way. It was just kind of how it all naturally came together throughout the creative process.”

“It was very interesting and good fun to see those different ideas,” Terada added. “I think what we managed to do, combining what we have traditionally done with these new ideas, becomes a really good combination in the end.”

By tapping on the expertise of these acclaimed writers and their perspectives, and meshing that together with those from the Japanese side, Forspoken looks to get the best of both worlds and tell a story unlike any other.

From taking place in modern New York City to the ancient lands of Athia, our heroine Frey Holland will have to contend with acclimatising to a new world together with the players. And for Luminous Productions and Forspoken, it is similar to how the studio had to adapt accordingly to work in this new setup.

By establishing a modern character from the present world with the studio’s values and the way the world is perceived through the modern lens, however Frey reacts or interacts become a reflection of what the team would do if they were in the same boat. This “fusion of modern and fantasy” is exactly what Luminous Productions is all about.

The setup of Forspoken does align with the increasingly popular genre of the isekai genre, a fish out of water story, but for Luminous Productions and Mistuno, it is more than just about one’s journey to getting home.

“What we want to do this time is not to show something that’s going from a fantasy world to another fantasy world, but that someone is going from our modern world to a fantasy world, and having to go through all the difficult struggles and hardships that are waiting for her there through kind of a lens of a human, a modern, contemporary, young woman.”

The advent of powerful technology certainly helped, where instead of focusing on either a realistic setting or the fantasy setting, Forspoken combines both in a way that highlights all the great things that can exist at the same time. It is without a doubt a risk, but one that the studio was willing to take to stand out.

That very same sense of adventure also comes through in terms of the combat in Forspoken, where traditional weapons are replaced by a comprehensive magic system. Instead of relying on her physical prowess, combat in the game is elevated by using magic of all kinds, while synergising different elements to turn things to your advantage.

Tereda also shared that there will be some flexibility afforded to players, with “different sorts of magic for different playstyles,” and veterans and beginners will be able to feel at home either way.

As seen from the latest trailer, there are several threats lying in wait for Frey. There is the threat of an unknown world besieged by the Break, a “devastating miasma that relentlessly corrupts everything it touches,” resulting in mutated creatures and inhospitable lands, as well as other magic users, like the evil and maddened sorceress Tanta Prav. The potential of the combat system will get the time to shine in all of these scenarios and more.

One familiar idea that is making a return is that of an open-world design. While some may fear the fatigue of having a big area to explore and nothing much else to do, the game has been designed to circumvent that issue altogether. Sure, there is much to look at and interact with, yet, the story remains linear and focused.

“We want the players to experience the story and follow along the lines of the narrative, but then, of course. As you progress, the story widens out to open up more areas and stuff to do within those areas,” Terada emphasised.

For Luminous Productions, Forspoken represents more than just a new project for a new team, but also a journey of throwing off the shackles of old and embracing a new creative process. The hope is that the game releases to great success, but whether or not this is the permanent direction the studio is taking is a decision that remains up in the air.

“We definitely think that door is open for future projects. But with that being said, nothing’s confirmed beyond Forspoken yet. So we might go for a different approach next time, we might follow the same approach. But what we know is that now we have this experience that we can go with this kind of Western and domestic kind of dual-pronged approach,’ Mistuno concluded.

Just like Frey, the unknown awaits, and hopefully, there will be a happy ending both for our heroine as well as the hardworking team behind it all. Be sure to also check out our gameplay preview to understand more about the game ahead of its planned 24 May release.