While the most prominent play areas inForspokenare across the four open realms of Athia, the cities of New York and Cipal still stand out as hubs for the cultures across the two distinct universes. With Frey Holland’s fish-out-of-water narrative in Cipal specifically, the new city is uniquely distinct fromForspoken’s opening city of New Yorkin many key ways.
These distinctions between Cipal and New York go far beyond the visual design of the cities and how they represent cultures from vastly different time periods. However, for every difference between the two cities, there are a number of similarities when digging into the history and cultures from each of the hubsForspokenoffers for Frey to explore.
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Forspoken’s Differing Eras of Mankind
The easiest way to see how New York and Cipal differ from each other comes from the two distinct eras that each city expresses. New York is a sleek, modern city, though Frey takes the player on a tour through both the nicer segments of the urban environment and the darker corners where danger lurks in back alleys. On the other hand,Forspoken’s hub city of Cipalboasts more antiquated architecture, with stone pillars and a town square where people can gather and there’s no fear of a car coming to plow through the street.
These differences also run deeper than just from the facade of each city. Most notably, the welcoming and communal nature of Cipal’s culture is a stark contrast to the more isolated and individual lives of the people ofForspoken’s interpretation on New York. While Frey does meet some kind figures like Judge Maya Bird in New York, her experience there is entirely isolated and forces her to only look after herself. In contrast, the more medieval society of Cipal is made to have a much more tightly-knit community, where everyone knows their neighbor and helps to better the city in any way they can.
Similarities Between Cipal and New York’s History
Players can learn much of the history of Athia while traveling, both through the environment itself and from scattered pages of lore that can be picked up and added to the archive. From all of this, it can be gathered that before the appearance ofForspoken’s corrupting Break, Cipal was a peaceful city that acted less as the hub for all of Athian culture and more as a neutral zone for the Tantas to meet together. However, after the break, Cipal became the only safe area for a fleeing people to find refuge and the city absorbed the many cultures from across the four realms.
The result of all of this mixing is that Cipal has a diverse society that draws from all of the cultures in the area. A piece of dialogue at The Shady Tree even confirms this, with the Tavernkeeper mentioning that their best booze is made with spices that come from the realm of Avoalet. He even states that the drink is a symbol of the way that Cipal takes people and their cultures from all over Athia and makes a unique melting pot of theentire world of Athia inForspoken. Even the mixing architecture shows how Cipal is a combination of cultures rather than one individual realm on its own.
This same concept of a melting pot, made of a diverse collection of immigrants and refugees is a stark reflection of New York in the modern day. From those who escaped to New York via Ellis Island during wartimes, to the initial landing of European settlers first establishing the Colonies that would eventually become the USA, this idea of a safe haven where cultures merge is a cornerstone of the city. So, on the surface, it can be difficult to see many comparisons between New York and Cipal, but the connections betweenFrey’s homes throughoutForspokenrun much deeper than skin level.
Forspokenis available now for PC and PS5.
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