Forspoken was first announced at Sony’s Future of Gaming event in 2020 under the title of Project Athia. The game is the first original title from Final Fantasy 15 developer Luminous Productions and the first title since then to also use the studio’s proprietary Luminous Engine. Shortly after its announcement it was revealed that the game features writing from Rogue One: A Star Wars Story writer Gary Whitta, with Uncharted writer Amy Hennig penning an original draft of the story.

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Despite its potential and the pedigree of its creators, Forspoken has been subject to much criticism throughout its marketing. Gameplay demonstrations have released to mixed reception and snippets of the game’s dialogue have resulted in memes mocking the game’s writing. Square Enix seems to have taken note of this response, as the publisher seems to be releasing an early demo for Forspoken according to a deleted Tweet from PlayStation Japan. In the deleted Tweet, which was spotted by Twitter user @Renka_schedule, the Japanese PlayStation account shared a video thumbnail captioned “Demo Announcement Trailer.”

Square Enix has already announced that Forspoken will receive an 11-minute gameplay live stream on December 9th. This is very likely to be where the publisher announces this upcoming demo for the game, which it seems is more or less confirmed to come to PlayStation 5. It’s not yet known whether the demo will release for PC, as Forspoken is set to be PC and PS5 exclusive for at least two years thanks to the exclusivity deal between Square Enix and Sony.

Square Enix has a track record for being one of the few big publishers operating today to still release demos for its major games ahead of release, many of which have gone on to influence features and fixes in the games before release like Octopath Traveler. This year alone the publisher has released demos for games like Triangle Strategy, Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin, The Diofield Chronicle, and Valkyrie Elysium. This is a great move for a big budget game like Forspoken as playing the game might convince players that the game is worthwhile better than any trailer, especially when Forspoken’s trailers have been so divisive.

Forspoken will release on PC and PS5 on January 24th 2023.

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