Forspokenseems promising for a variety of reasons, including its narrative. The new Luminous Productions title is an isekai game about a young woman from New York City who gets transported to a world of magic and monsters. Isekai is hardly a new genre, thanks to its prevalence in anime, but the world and characters at the heart ofForspokengive it the potential to stand out within its field. Even so, it’s interesting to compareForspokento other games experimenting with an isekai structure, includingPokemon Legends: Arceus,which puts a new twist onPokemonby transporting its protagonist across time and space.
ForspokenandPokemon Legends: Arceuscouldn’t be more different in some respects.Forspokenis an action RPGwith stunning, realistic graphics, whilePokemon Legends: Arceusis a turn-based game that preserves the colorful, stylized look of its franchise. In terms of narrative, though,ForspokenandPokemon Legends: Arceuscould turn out to have some things in common. Frey Holland is a very different person from thePokemon Legends: Arceusprotagonist, but she is grappling with a perfectly comparable life change.Forspoken’s world could feature a variety of stories and characters that come across as more mature takes on the themes thatPokemon Legends: Arceusexplored in its own isekai narrative.
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Forspoken and Pokemon Legends: Arceus' Possible Similarities
Frey and thePokemon Legends: Arceusprotagonist already seem to have a lot in common. They each start out simply:Frey is a seemingly normal humanliving in New York City, while thePL:Aprotagonist is an unassuming teenager who may know little about Pokemon. Both characters have power and responsibility thrust upon them when they’re suddenly transported to another world, where they discover talents and abilities that they must use to protect the world around them.Forspokenwill undoubtedly have a more complicated take on this structure, since Frey has a more detailed backstory, but the similarities between her and thePL:Aprotagonist are clear.
Beyond the player characters,Forspokenhas the chance to include other narrative elements that tap into the isekai concept likePokemon Legends: Arceusdoes. For instance,Pokemon Legends: Arceuslets players interact withanother displaced character, Ingo, and features lots of characters with different feelings about these strangers coming to the Hisui region from other worlds.Forspokenwill almost certainly include a lot of scenes where Frey’s origins on Earth come into conflict with the experiences and beliefs of Athia’s residents. What’s more,Forspokenmay have characters besides Frey who have been transported to Athia from Earth, following in Ingo’s footsteps.
Forspoken’s Potential After Pokemon Legends: Arceus
The similarities between these two games should get fans of isekai games excited. After enjoyingPokemon Legends: Arceus' fun but fairly simplistic angle on being whisked away from one’s time and place,Forspokencould offer a more robust, nuanced exploration of the isekai experience. When compared in this way,ForspokenandPokemon Legends: Arceuscould show the breadth of possibilities available to games when they tell their own isekai stories. In other words,in the wake ofForspokenandPokemon Legends: Arceus, this style of storytelling could get even more popular in the game industry thanks to the variety introduced by Game Freak and Luminous Productions.
Even ifForspokendoesn’t lead to an isekai revolution, it’s still interesting to see how this game reflects other recent trends or landmarks in the game industry. Luminous Productions seemingly intends to put new twists on a lot of recent phenomena.Forspokenhas major similarities toHorizon: Zero Dawntoo, for instance, but it still promises to provide a story and world all its own. AlthoughPokemon Legends: Arceusis probably too recent to have truly inspiredForspoken,PL:Adoes shed light on the clever combination of familiarity and innovation that holdsForspokenup.ForspokenandPokemon Legends: Arceusmay accomplish very different things, but they’re still quite the dynamic duo.
Forspokenreleases Jun 08, 2025 for PC and PS5.
