Did Forspoken lose money?

Forspoken was released on January 24, 2023, for PS5 and Windows.
Shortly after launch, Square Enix publicly stated that the game’s sales were “lackluster” and that its performance posed a “considerable downside risk” to the company’s full-year results.
Analyst commentary estimated that the development (and likely marketing) cost was substantial, and given the poor return, the title faced serious challenges in breaking even.
While no official figure has been published to confirm a net loss, the combination of high costs and disappointing sales strongly suggests that Forspoken did not meet profitability expectations and may indeed have resulted in a loss for the publisher.

Is Forspoken worth $20?

Whether Forspoken is worth $20 depends heavily on the player’s expectations and preferences.
Pros:

• It features a fast and fluid traversal system (magic-powered parkour) across a large, open world, which some players found enjoyable as a novelty.
• On the technical front for the PS5, load times and visual ambition were noted by some reviewers as solid.
  Cons:
• Despite the large open world, many critics noted that the content felt hollow and repetitive, with the core activities lacking depth and substance.
• The narrative arc, characterization, and pacing were widely criticized as weak or underwhelming.
• The rapid steep discounting (e.g., PS5 version down to $10 in the U.S.) signals that the market’s valuation of the game is very low.
  Verdict:
  If you are willing to explore a technically ambitious, large-budget title, enjoy traversal mechanics, and treat story/characters as secondary, then at around $20 (or less), it might provide some entertainment. However, if you expect a deeply engaging open world with rich content, memorable characters, and polished systems, then even at $20, it may not feel worth it — the market feedback suggests that many players think “even $10 was too much.”

What was the budget for Forspoken?

Square Enix has not confirmed exact official budget numbers, but multiple credible sources estimate as follows:

• Analysts estimate the development cost to be more than ¥10 billion (≈ approximately US$75 million) as of early 2023.
• The lead writer of Forspoken, Allison Rymer, listed on her LinkedIn profile that the game was a “fantasy AAA video game ($100,000,000+ budget).”
• Media outlets, therefore, often quote a budget of “over US$100 million” to produce the title.
  Given the scale of the production (new engine, open-world size, marketing push) and the publisher’s own warnings about the risk posed by this title’s performance, it is reasonable to treat the budget as “on the order of +US$75-100 million or higher”.

Summary

• Forspoken has not recouped its investment, given its high cost and weak market performance.
• Whether it is worth buying at around $20 depends on your priorities — traversal and world size vs. deep narrative and polish — but many players feel the game did not deliver enough to merit even a low price.

• • The budget for the game was huge (estimated US$75–100 million+), making the commercial under-performance especially significant for the publisher.

The above content is compiled by ModeZone, a fashion and entertainment magazine.