Amid fan feedback, Square Enix says Forspoken demo's side quests and tutorials aren't reflective of the final game

Forspoken's demo won't reflect its final quality, at least in the side quest department.

Last weekend, a new Forspoken demo launched for PS5 players exclusively, putting them into the shoes of protagonist Frey for a brief jaunt around the open world. There's combat and traversal parkour aplenty in the new demo, but not everything will be present in the final version of Square Enix's game.

Creative director Raio Mitsuno tells Gematsu in a new interview that the demo's new side quests were specifically constructed for the demo. "So that was specifically kind of fetch quest-like in terms of the makeup, like, do these five objectives and then you get to fight a boss," said Mitsuno of Forsopoken's Tokyo Game Show 2022 demo, which is the same demo PS5 players are now digging into.

"So the full game isn't actually designed like that. That was just specifically created for that demo experience," Mitsuno continues. Elsewhere in the new interview, the creative director tells Gematsu that the TGS demo was "a specially crafted gameplay demo just to give a feel for the mechanics of parkour and magic."

It's true that Forspoken's new demo doesn't start out at the beginning of the game, dropping players partway through Frey's adventure after giving them an overview of the opening events. From that, we can infer that Forspoken's tutorial for parkour, movement and combat at least won't be the same as in the final product, but this is useful confirmation from Square Enix that things will play out differently elsewhere as well.

This is all critical information because the Forspoken demo hasn't been received so well by players. While some quickly praised the game's slick combat when it launched last week, others immediately decried the traversal and dialogue. Depending on where you landed with the new game, this new information from Square Enix could help sell you on the final game.

Head over to our Forspoken hands-on preview for our time with the game so far, and our brief chat with the development team.