As you dive into the magical world of Athia in Square Enix’s latest RPG game, you’ll realise very quickly that the Forspoken map is a big place. ‘Just how big is it?’ you may be asking yourself; well one avid Forspoken fan has answered your query.
In a very, very detailed Reddit post, u/SlurryBlender states that they “used the custom waypoint feature to do a very basic set of measurements of Athia’s landmass. I only did a very general ‘width x height’ calculation, plus removing a few shapes around the edges, plus taking out the unplayable regions inside the map to find the actual ‘playable area.'”
It turns out that Athia’s playable zone is about the size of Manhattan, one of the most famous boroughs in New York City. It’s not lost on me that the fantasy game‘s sassy protagonist, Frey, is also from the Big Apple – coincidence, or clever engineering on Luminous’ part? I guess we’ll never know.
When compared to the sprawling sandbox universes of The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim and Red Dead Redemption 2, Athia comes in at around “2.5x the size of Skyrim, 1.5x the size of Breath of the Wild, and 1.3x the size of Red Dead Redemption 2.”
Of course, all of these values are estimations, but it’s a cool little insight into Athia’s design. Having zoomed around it for what seems like hours to take in the sights and test out Frey’s newfound abilities, it certainly feels like a big place. There are a whole plethora of different zones, vistas, and waypoints – many of which I’ve yet to discover – and, while the voice acting is a little cringe, I can see myself spending hours exploring every nook and cranny.
If you, like me, are on a somewhat fruitless crusade to convince players that Forspoken isn’t absolutely awful, then we’ve got a rundown of the Forspoken system requirements to encourage your friends with. If you’re worried it may melt their PC, though, we have the best Forspoken settings too – even the best graphics cards are struggling, so you’ll thank me later.