Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin limited-time demo is out on PS5 now

Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin is a new spinoff to the Final Fantasy series, currently in the works by the team behind Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive, and you can play its first demo right now.

Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin is headed to PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X and S in 2022. The new project from Team Ninja was revealed as the capstone for Square Enix's E3 2021 event, and it stars a trio of heroes who are on a mission to destroy Chaos - or as he used to be known, the knight Garland.

The Stranger of Paradise reveal trailer shows off the kind of fast-paced combat you'd expect from Team Ninja, with our heroes wielding a variety of weapons to tear through legions of monsters and generally make a mess of the Shrine of Chaos.  Our heroes are named Jack, Ash, and Jed, and Jack makes it abundantly clear that he really, really wants to kill Chaos - Final Fantasy diehards may notice that he's able to use equipment and spells from a variety of classic Final Fantasy classes, including the black mage, warrior, and dragoon.

It's not totally clear whether this game is meant to be a prequel or side story to the original Final Fantasy, in which Garland was the ultimate villain, or if this is just another reimagining of familiar elements as Final Fantasy games are wont to do. In any case, you won't have to wait to give the game a shot if you're one of the lucky few PS5 owners: its PS5-exclusive demo went live today, and will be available through June 24 - once that period is over, you'll no longer be able to play the demo.

Square Enix and Team Ninja plan to use feedback from the demo to help shape further development for the game, so make sure you give it a shot if you want to be part of the origin for Final Fantasy Origin.

Don't have a PS5 to play the demo on? Make sure you stay tuned to our Prime Day PS5 deals to see if you can snag one. 

Connor Sheridan

I got a BA in journalism from Central Michigan University - though the best education I received there was from CM Life, its student-run newspaper. Long before that, I started pursuing my degree in video games by bugging my older brother to let me play Zelda on the Super Nintendo. I've previously been a news intern for GameSpot, a news writer for CVG, and now I'm a staff writer here at GamesRadar.

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