The latest fuel hike must be affecting the prices of digital games in South Africa too (just kidding). This morning when Forspoken went up for pre-order in SA, gamers were shocked to see that the upcoming RPG by Square Enix is now the most expensive new standard edition game for PS5 ever to be released in the region. A standard edition copy of Forspoken will set you back a whopping R1,429. This includes PS5 and Steam.

Expensive PS5 games are nothing new in South Africa. At launch, Sony marked up most of its first-party lineup to around R1,369. In fact, the most expensive Standard Edition PS5 games from Sony at the moment are Returnal and the upcoming Gran Turismo 7. Both are sold at R1,369. However, Forspoken has now broken through the R1,400 mark for the base edition. There isn’t another game on the PlayStation Store set at this price.

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Even the upcoming Horizon Forbidden West is set to Sony’s standard R1,369 price point. Sadly, this new Forspoken listing might be a sign of things to come. Usually, when games go up for pre-order, they are adjusted to the current exchange rate. If our rates are low then we can expect our digital games to sell for a bit more. New games are all set at a certain price until the rate fluctuated and new pre-orders are listed.

This is what happened last year when the PS5 was released. All those games were set at R1,369. A year later and the new R1,429 price point might be the norm going forward for new upcoming PS5 exclusives. It has now reached a point of insanity. Keep in mind that this is a standard edition game. There’s nothing fancy to look at, no digital items to gloat over or anything of the sort. Forspoken also comes with a Deluxe Edition that will set you back R1,879. This is yet another massive jump in pricing compared to other games with Standard and Deluxe Edition variants.

The most expensive upcoming PS5 exclusive games now include:

• Forspoken – R1,429
• Horizon Forbidden West – R1,369
• Gran Turismo 7 – R1,369
• Babylon’s Fall – R1,249
• Stranger of Paradise – R1,249

I don’t know about you but these prices are starting to look very scary. Usually, PC gamers can at least save a bit of cash on certain games too. Unfortunately, Forspoken has carried that insane R1,429 price tag over to Steam too. If you want this game, you’ll have to pay that price on either platform.

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