There's a woman. She wakes up in a strange, magical realm, overflowing with chaos and danger. She has a yappy companion and their relationship is filled with banter. Her name is Faye. Or Frey. One of the two. Easy mistake to make — this describes two quite similar magical ladies, after all. This one is the latest star leading God of War Laufey, the hotly anticipated upcoming title from one of Sony’s mega studios. The other one led Forspoken, a much maligned and quickly dismissed RPG from early 2023 that never really got a fair chance.
The similarities between Laufey and Forspoken go beyond a protagonist whose name sounds remarkably similar; both games centre on a lone woman navigating a dangerous magical world, but where Frey Holland had Cuff — a sardonic, sentient bracelet who never shut up — Faye now has Phranque: a gelatinous cube with a sword stuck through him, voiced (and motion-captured, for some reason) by Jack Quaid of The Boys fame. It feels like very much the same concept but in a different geometry.
Phranque is described, officially, as "a curious cosmic cube with an earnest disposition." He bounces around in combat, crushing enemies and presumably leaving a trail of sticky residue. He's Cuff if Cuff had attended one too many D&D sessions — and that's precisely the issue I'm seeing. There is a very specific kind of humour that emerges from gelatinous cube jokes in Dungeons & Dragons circles, one that only lands among the deeply initiated and reads as try-hard to everyone else. What we've seen of Phranque so far is doing very little to suggest it will escape that gravitational pull. It’s cringe, friends. Utterly cringe.
The internet, for what it's worth, seems to disagree with me for the most part. The reaction following yesterday’s reveal has been overwhelmingly cube-positive, with people declaring their undying affection for Phranque within minutes of the State of Play closing. That, if anything, should give you pause. The early reception to Cuff was similarly warm among people who actually picked up the game. It was only once people were locked into hour five of banter that opinion began to rot.
For most of Forspoken’s detractors, however, hour five was never a concern -— opinion had calcified long before the game even came out. Its reputation was built from clips and trailers, snapshots of Cuff at his quippiest, passed around as evidence of a disaster that no one had the full picture of yet. The actual game was more considered than that verdict allowed. What Laufey is being welcomed for with open arms is exactly what Forspoken was condemned for; the difference is largely the logo in the corner.
Cuff, at his best, worked. The dynamic was an emotional engine for Forspoken that gave it some of the best moments (yes, it really did have some ‘best moments’). The issue was in sustainability: there were plenty of cracks that showed that the dynamic isn’t enough. And it’s why Phranque’s existence makes me view Laufey with scepticism.
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I could be wrong. I reviewed Forspoken and gave it a 3.5 out of 5, which suggests my calibration on the 'talking inanimate object companion' subgenre is, at best, suspect and badly calibrated. But if you're hoping Phranque is more than a very charming trailer moment, it might be worth keeping Cuff's trajectory in mind.
God of War Laufey Like Follow Followed Action Adventure Hack and Slash RPG Systems Developer(s) Santa Monica Studio Publisher(s) Sony Interactive Entertainment Prequel(s) God of War, God of War Ragnarok Franchise God of War Number of Players Single-player 9 Images CloseWHERE TO PLAY
DIGITAL
