Forspoken (opens in new tab) looked pretty good when we played it in late 2021, but the trailer released in August 2022 made a much different and less favorable impression. commentators on Twitter (opens in new tab) Joss Whedon) made unfavorable comparisons, some of the edgier lines immediately dominated the conversation, and in a review of PlayStation 5 that began circulating yesterday, PC Gamer feature producer Mollie Taylor ( As Forspoken put it, Forspoken was "bullseye average (open in new tab). [but you can get an idea of what the game is like by looking at the Forspoken demos available on Steam (open in new tab), Epic (open in new tab), and the Microsoft Store (open in new tab).

Details about the demo's content are not provided by the stores, but Square Enix has confirmed that it is the same demo released last month for the PS5 version.

"In this specially crafted demo, you can really delve into the game's flowing traversal and take on truly monstrous enemies in combat," Square Enix said in December (opens in new tab). 'There is no storyline for this tester. It's about enjoying the ultra-satisfying gameplay.

"The Water Gardens of Avoale are a beautiful area of Atia with plenty of room to run around and practice parkour. You will be given five main goals to accomplish, but there is also plenty of scope to just explore and delve into the delightful and profound mechanics.

The download on Steam is about 43 GB, which is large for a demo. But it may be worth the effort, especially if you are not 100% confident in your PC's capabilities. As we pointed out last week when the system requirements (open in new tab) were released, the minimum specs, including a GeForce GTX 1060 CPU and 16GB RAM, will produce 30fps at 720p, but if it stays at 30fps even when you bump it up to 1440p, you'll need an AMD Ryzen 5 3600 or Intel Core i7 8700K, AMD RX 6700 XT or Nvidia RTX 3070, and 24GB RAM would be required. With that in mind, the opportunity to see how Forspoken works on your rig without having to rely on Steam's refund policy is probably a good thing.

The PC version of Forspoken is currently available for $70/£65/€80; a review of the PC version will be posted soon.