I’m Ryota Nozoe, Lead Visual Effects Artist at Forspoken.
In this expansive new action RPG, you control Frey Holland, a young woman transported to the mysterious world of Asia. This land may be beautiful, but it is also dangerous. A phenomenon called “Break” has corrupted people and creatures, turning them into terrifying monsters.
Luckily Frey can summon a variety of magical spells to protect himself, from harnessing the elements to manipulating nature itself. increase:
As you can see, the magic is varied and visually spectacular. Read on. I’ll tell you a little bit about how we achieved that.
Defining Forspoken magic “looks”
We spent a lot of time thinking about how spells would be visualized in Forspoken.
First and foremost, I wanted to prevent things like fire and rock from suddenly appearing out of nowhere. That’s certainly fine and wouldn’t have caused problems, but it felt too expected and tedious to do, especially in a game focused on magic.
We have decided that all spells share a common rule – it starts with magical energy and transitions to the aforementioned natural phenomena like fire and rock. Return to previous magical energy.
We also wanted to avoid using Auras and Summon Circles while Frey was casting spells. This lacks originality. Early in development, we decided to represent Forspoken’s magical energy with geometric patterns.
This dictated the visual design of all the magic in the game and allowed us to maintain a consistent visual style throughout the game.
Each spell in the game was created by a team of visual artists, game designers, and programmers working closely together. To give an example of this, here are three of his spells available in the game and why I brought them to life.
burst shot
Burst Shot fires an explosive chunk of rock that deals damage in an area.
Since it’s an explosive dirt-based spell that deals area damage, we thought it felt appropriate and magical to summon a large boulder that sticks out quickly in four directions.
This was the first spell Frey got and the first spell we worked on.
Burst Shot was the first spell I completed, so it became the guideline for all of Forspoken’s spells. I used it to perfect the common rule that as I made it, the geometry would turn into rock and then disappear back into the geometry.
So while it may not be the most visually impressive spell, it’s certainly special because it served as a starting point for all the other spells in the game!
Cataract
Cataract creates a vortex of water that sucks in enemies and deals damage. Hold down the button to shoot water pillars to attack enemies, and hold down to shoot ice pillars to freeze enemies!
During development, I came up with the idea of water streams converging to create a massive ice explosion. We challenged ourselves to visualize how water turns into ice. Only when that is accomplished will the spell be complete.
Of course, easier said than done! For example, here is a spell with different levels. At level 2 there are only water explosions, at level 3 water explosions turn into ice. Exploding and freezing water was very difficult. We basically had to develop it as two separate spells, so it required double the work.
Well worth it, because I was able to find a way to express the concept of water turning into ice. We were also very particular about developing shaders for these substances. I think Cataract is one of those spells that looks beautiful even at first glance.
Genesis
Genesis summons a thorny branch that fires in front of you and impales enemies in a wide area. Hold down the button to hit harder and more evenly in an area, and hold it longer to attack and poison enemies!
The “origin” of this spell actually came from something I was experimenting with early in development. Very early on, we determined that Frey could manipulate nature. I thought it would be appropriate and visually impactful if she could summon a large tree from the ground!
In the original design, trees grew and attacked enemies, but as development progressed, the design was reworked to better fit the game’s mechanics.
This spell was still being tested in the prototype stage. It’s a pretty extravagant concept – trees grow out of the ground, flowers bloom, and even bigger trees pierce everything in sight!
It took an enormous amount of trial and error to show that the plants were created on such a scale. It was especially difficult to show trees growing out of the ground. I had to test a lot of different methods and try again and again.
And when I thought it was finished, I ended up with a spell with multiple levels, so it was hard to figure out how to distinguish between levels 1-3!
But I am happy with the result. I think we have achieved something great.
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As you can see, we’ve worked incredibly hard to make Forspoken combat look good and feel good to play. We can’t wait to show you all the amazing spells we’ve created, but we’ll have to wait until the game releases!
Forspoken will release for PlayStation 5 on January 24, 2023, Book now.