Viral Clip From 'Forspoken' Sparks Debate On What Constitutes 'Bad' Video Game Dialogue

January 24th, 2023 - 3:04 PM EST by Adam Downer

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forspoken dialogue tweet

It's been just over five months since the first trailer for Square Enix's new video game Forspoken hit the internet and quickly became a meme for its over-the-top, quippy, Marvel-esque narration. The game officially comes out today, which means it's time for the internet to see if the cringe in the trailer made its way into the final product.

As reviews and reactions for it ramp up today, one viral clip tweeted by user @G27Status has been at the forefront of the dialogue discourse:


The scene finds the protagonist Frey chatting with her magical Cuff. Cuff waxes poetic on the nature of destruction and corruption and Frey needles it for its pretentiousness. @G27Status held it up as an example of cringeworthy dialogue in Forspoken, but unlike the unanimous pile-on that occurred after the trailer dropped, this clip proved more divisive.

As @G27Status' tweet racked up 7,900 quote-tweets in just a day, many argued that they were being too harsh and the dialogue in the clip was pretty decent, not unlike something you'd hear in an Uncharted or Spider-Man game.


Others were less charitable, saying it reminded them of commonly reviled dialogue tropes, particularly those associated with Joss Whedon.


While reactions to the clip seem fairly split, it's possible Forspoken may mark a turning point for video game writers to move away from light-hearted, quippy dialogue, particularly voiced by teen characters.

As several commenters pointed out, the highlighted clip isn't remarkably different in tone from many popular franchises, particularly Marvel's Spider-Man. It's also likely the case that Forspoken's script was completed well before the backlash to its style was in full force, making it the scapegoat for the public's recent distaste.

It's also worth noting that if you really dislike the in-game dialogue, you can also turn down some of it through a custom option in the game's settings menu that offers a slider for banter frequency.


Discussions about Forspoken's dialogue aside, there's also a bit of backlash going around during its release about the PC requirements for hardware, which are pretty astonishing to many users. Since being shared online, memes and other reactions to it have been quite negative for the game's high-end settings.



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in reply to Jellopy

Honestly I think that's why people hate it – it's an effect kind of similar to Death of the Author. The joke by itself is fine, but because it's coming from a game which is trying way too hard to be funny (which people determined after seeing the trailer), everything from the game is seen as trying too hard to be funny. It's like how it's impossible for Shyamalan to intentionally write realistically awkward dialogue, because people are going to compare it to all the times where his dialogue was trying too hard to be cool and unintentionally coming off as awkward – it's easy to assume that it's more of the same.

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