It’s no secret that Square Enix’s magical RPG game Forspoken has struggled to win over players as a result of ridiculous system specifications, janky aim mechanics, and a somewhat cringy storyline. To combat all of the above, the devs have dropped the first “major” Forspoken update in an attempt to make Athia a better place.
Described by Forspoken director Takeshi Aramaki as a “major update,” Forspoken patch 1.10 focuses on a few major quality of life changes that will hopefully make the experience a little bit easier.
Forspoken won’t fry your PC anymore (hopefully)
I remember looking at the Forspoken system requirements and doing a sharp intake of breath. While my engineering knowledge isn’t quite up to scratch, one glance at those specs told me that my good ol’ Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 Super would be in for a rough time if I tried to play the game.
To save me forking out wads of cash on one of the best graphics cards out there, the devs have implemented some changes to the stress Forspoken puts on your PC, writing that “the [processing] load has been reduced to approximately 70% in certain scenes.” Whether that load is on the GPU or CPU remains unknown, but hopefully your game will run a little more smoothly from now on in.
New Forspoken target lock on system
One of Forspoken’s other irritating quirks is Frey’s inability to aim correctly. While Luminous has clearly hoped to challenge players by forcing them to line up their spells, I’d be lying if I said I felt like half of my spells went where I actually wanted them to go.
To remedy this, Forspoken now has a togglable targeting system. You’ll be able to turn on ‘Target Enemy’ in settings which means you’ll auto-lock to an enemy as you charge your next spell. This works in tandem with two other new features, ‘lock on to nearby enemies’ and ‘off-screen enemy lock on,’ which will smoothly switch your attacks between foes.
In a similar vein, you can now switch on a setting that prevents Frey’s spells from staggering her, which is especially useful when you start learning higher level magic.
Forspoken update 1.10 patch notes
Below are the full patch notes for the PC version of Forspoken, courtesy of Square Enix and Luminous Poductions.
Technical Issues
- Fixed an issue where the screen unintentionally flickers when AMD Radeon RX 570 or RX 580 is used. (PC version)
- Various minor fixes.
Feature Updates
- Adjusted the explanatory text and default camera position for the tutorial of the Magic Parkour skill Zip.
- Added an option where the players can choose to automatically switch to the last-viewed section when accessing a menu.
- Added an option where the players can choose to automatically point the camera to the targeted enemy when locking on an enemy during charging spells.
- Added an option where the players can choose to automatically switch the lock-on target to a nearby enemy after defeating a locked-on enemy.
- Added an option that enables the players to lock on to off-screen enemies.
- Added an option where the players can choose to prevent being staggered by the effects of Frey’s own spells.
- Adjusted certain enemies’ motions and behaviours upon taking damage.
- Adjusted Sila’s Magic “Slice” to be unleashed to the direction Frey is facing.
Graphical Adjustments
- Adjusted the lighting of certain areas in Cipal.
- Adjusted the camera effects that occur when framing bright objects such as the sun.
- Adjusted the texture and shading for certain objects.
- Adjusted the number of polygons for certain background objects.
- Improved the glare filter quality.
- Updated the menu to display the required memory usage.
- Updated the opening sequence to go through the Brightness Settings before starting the game for the first time.
Miscellaneous
- Removed the VRS entry from the Graphics section of the menu.
- The shader has been optimized to have the Variable Rate Shading (VRS) available for all hardware.
- Updated the DirectX 12 version to 1.606.4 from 1.4.10.
Optimization
- Reduced the processing load in certain areas. (The load has been reduced to approximately 70% in certain scenes.)
- Reduced the VRAM usage.
- Minor optimization for certain features.
If the fact that your PC (hopefully) won’t explode has encouraged you to try out Forspoken, be sure to check out our list of the best Forspoken settings to ensure your adventuring in Athia is the best it can be. We also have a rundown of all the best fantasy games if you remain unconvinced.
