Forspoken combat gameplay shows off so, so many spells

Forspoken has so very many different spells available to its protagonist, it turns out. 

A new deep-dive video from developer Luminous Productions and publisher Square Enix highlights the 100-plus mystical abilities that protagonist Frey can take advantage of, and it's enough to make you miss the age of printed strategy guides.

This is far from the first deep-dive released by the developer in advance of Forspoken's release date, but it's maybe the first one that's made me actively want to see more. If you caught the previous look at magic parkour in Forspoken, this is the other half of that equation and offers a better look at magic combat more specifically.

A lengthy PlayStation blog post details the spells seen in the video while also explaining how the team went about defining what magic even looked like in Forspoken.

"First and foremost, we wanted to stay away from having things like fire or rocks just suddenly appearing out of nowhere," states Ryota Nozoe, lead visual effects artist at Luminous Productions. "While that certainly would have been fine, and wouldn’t have caused any issues, doing that felt too expected and boring – especially for a game so focused on magic."

"We decided that every spell would share a common rule – it would start with magic energy, and transition into natural phenomena like the aforementioned fire and rocks," continues Nozoe. "Then, when the spell is cast, it would revert back to magic energy before fading away."

And if the deep dive embedded above intrigues you, it's worth noting that our own Ali Jones had a similar reaction in his recent Forspoken hands-on preview. As he put it, weaving all of this different magic together makes for some seriously hectic skill-based combat as Frey zips around the field of battle while casting one spell after another.

In case you somehow missed it, Forspoken was delayed once again earlier this year into 2023.