The Luminous Engine excels at rendering beautiful landscapes and populating a game world with particle physics that helps make games likeForspokenpop. While the engine can make theworld of Athia look gorgeous, those particles can make the visuals extremely busy, especially when combat throws a large number of tiny enemies at the player.
This leaves a real give and take forForspoken, as the particles and visuals built under the Luminous Engine are a huge part of the draw to explore the beautiful world of Athia. Fortunately, this problem is situational, and the larger set piece bosses and encounters shouldn’t be as affected by this as the more standard fights around the world could be.
RELATED:How Forspoken Takes Cues From Stranger of Paradise, Soulslike Games
Luminous Engine’s Busy Visuals
It is a strange thing to complain about the visuals in Luminous Engine being too impressive, as the ability for a game engine to run with so much physics happening onscreen used to be the boasting point of top-of-the-line gaming hardware. However, asForspokenmoves to PS5 and higher PC system requirements, the amount of stuff being put on the screen starts crossing the line from visually stunning to visually noisy. Some encounters are to the point that light-sensitive players may have difficulty keeping their eyes on the screen without some type of painful reaction.
In the specific case of this title, it comes mostly down toForspoken’s otherwise dynamic magical combat. While the ability to mix spells and subclasses on the fly means that there is no shortage of ways to engage in combat, it also means there is no shortage of magic particles being illuminated onscreen. A combination of Fusillade, Disperse, and Legion can give Frey a whole party of extra attackers to combine with her own scatter shots and flaming javelins. The result is a cluster of different lighting effects all clashing against each other into a visually busy picture.
This is then compounded when taking the game’s enemies into account, specifically the smaller creatures that attack in large numbers rather than as a single, powerful opponent. Having birds and imps flying through the air and scurrying across the ground at the same time thatFrey’s colorful magicis spreading out for miles creates a blur of action from moment to moment. It takes the parts ofForspokenthat Luminous Engine excels at portraying, and gives players too much of a good thing.
The Hope for Forspoken’s Boss Fights
Fans of the last major release from the Luminous Engine are likely used to the busy screens, however, as they appeared all overFinal Fantasy 15as well. So, given the comparisons already associated betweenForspokenand its predecessor, it is likely that many of the key moments will have the same level of visual fidelity, especially during boss fights. While the bosses inFinal Fantasy 15might not be the hardest in the series,encounters like The Archaean and Leviathanare among the most impressive set pieces that Square Enix has developed so far.
In that case,Forspoken’s overuse of visual splendor in smaller battles across the world of Athia could lead to even more beautiful set pieces than were previously seen inFinal Fantasy 15. This means that Luminous Productions has a solid chance at making sure that the bosses ofForspokencould stand out as the highlight of the developer’s engine. Of course, that is also assuming that the engine will be able to run well enough on all systems to get players to those boss encounters. The demo on PS5 does show the promise of these impressive spectacles, but the overloaded particles could be difficult to optimize for PC when both platforms get access to the game.
Forspokenis set to release on Jun 16, 2025, for PC and PS5.
MORE:Forspoken’s Spellcraft Challenges are a Great Incentive to Experiment With Builds
