The Forgotten City (PS5) Review

LOOKING TO THE PAST FOR A BRIGHTER TOMORROW

This particular review has been a long time coming and I must confess that I carry a positive bias towards The Forgotten City so please know up front that I think this game is special and deserving of just about anyone’s time. Go play this game if you have any remote interest in time loop stories, social puzzles, philosophy, and ancient Roman culture. It also has an intriguing development history that we will hopefully be getting more of soon. 

Those familiar with my early games media work may already know my history with this game but let’s recap for new readers. The Forgotten City was originally a 2015 story mod for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, racking up over 3.7 million downloads. It was one of the early mods available on consoles. It stayed as one of the most celebrated mods of Skyrim for several years and it even won a few awards for its writing becoming the first mod in history to win a national Writers’ Guild award. The developer, known as Modern Storyteller, received a lot of praise and attention. I was lucky enough to play the mod right before the full release and I interviewed the mod’s creator; both articles were published on Giga Geek Magazine initially with some of that content being refreshed for our offerings here on Forever Classic Games. This was possibly one of the first early looks I got as a games writer, a complete nobody in the space. It was a big opportunity for me to say the least. 

When I heard that the mod was going to be expanded into a full game, shared as really a bullet point during an E3 PC Gaming Show presentation, I was overwhelmed with joy. That mod always stuck out in my mind as one of my favorite PC gaming experiences and I was eager to see what could be accomplished outside of the constraint of a mod. 

While the final product could arguably be improved in a few notable areas, what I’ve played of this release feels like far more than the sum of its parts. Where I would love to see improvement are the character model facial expressions and additional animations for certain actions. There are moments when this game feels a lot like scenes from Oblivion; characters sometimes just appear into the frame and it’s hilarious. Despite characters looking awkward at times, the voice acting and writing create a sense of character in pretty much the entire cast of the game, which is sizable enough that one may want to take notes to keep track of things. Thankfully, the game does have a handy quest system that (mostly) works great in keeping the player on task. There are moments that I wished had a bit more direction but solving the various puzzles is extremely satisfying. 

The Forgotten City is a first-person narrative-driven social puzzle game with a few action sequences to break things up. Released in late July 2021, the game was developed by Modern Storyteller (now a small team) and published by Dear Villagers who also published Scourge Bringer, Hover, Edge of Eternity, and more. The Forgotten City was launched on PC, PS5, PS4, Xbox Series S/X, and Xbox One. A port to the Nintendo Switch is planned for Q3 2021. 

There are lots of fun visual filters that can be used in photo mode or during gameplay.

The game’s premise is this: after awakening at the shore of a river, a strange woman named Karen directs the player to find Al, who runs ahead to check out some ruins. Looking for Al and an answer to the strange circumstances, the player stumbles into a derelict city populated only by golden statues. It’s not long before the player falls into a deeper chamber and transports to the past on the day that a great tragedy befalls a mostly Roman community, turning them all into gold. 

Barely holding this city together is a moral concept called The Golden Rule, which mostly keeps citizens from killing each other or stealing but there’s enough interpretation that the rule starts to bend in various ways. Breaking the rule triggers a platoon of golden archers that steadily turn the others into gold. Luckily, thanks to a ritual performed by the town’s Magistrate, Sentius, who trades his life to create a portal that loops back to the start of the day, the player can repeatedly reset the pieces of this grand puzzle until a solution is found. Additionally, players keep the items they have acquired and they are able to relegate a few core tasks to Galerius, who is one of the central characters and the first one met upon crossing into the past. This little tweak brilliantly allows players to loop without having to do a checklist of repeated tasks each time they do so. 

By using this time loop, the player can steadily solve various problems by interacting with a cast of believable characters. In The Forgotten City, knowledge is power so the more one learns about these people, the better one can potentially save them (and yourself) from the great tragedy. 

Characters and their relationships with each other drive much of the narrative.

What results is this fascinating puzzle box where players slowly unravel various plot points and further acclimate themselves to this city and its history. It’s a wonderful brain teaser that had me thinking several layers deep. Choosing dialogue answers without thinking could result in characters ignoring the player for that loop, which when done a lot, really hinders progress. These mistakes resulted in me taking a more careful approach and paying more attention. It’s a subtle way to grab the player that I’m really fond of and something that I notice a lot in games by From Software or the tougher nature of DOOM Eternal when compared to previous games in the bombastic action franchise. 

For the most part, the mechanics in The Forgotten City are solid. The player turns at a pleasant speed, managing the inventory works just fine, and picking choices feels natural. Running around feels good, for the most part, but where things get weird is when trying to land on a particular platform when using a zipline but that’s one of the few instances where the movement got in the way. Otherwise, running about the city was smooth. 

Aiming with the few weapons in the games feel a little weird since I’m used to the excellent gunplay found in other games that I’ve been playing on PS5, particularly Resident Evil Village, but there is not a lot of accuracy needed. When a particular shot needs to be done, there is a failsafe kick action that resets the opportunity so combat is fairly straightforward. I do wish some of the combat was a little more intimidating since I was able to exploit the kick action immediately; this shifted the action sections from tense as they’re likely intended to be to a more run-and-gun situation. Those that struggle with shooters though can hang back and usually find alternative solutions so I recommend vigilance when playing. There are subtle details to take in and that’s where The Forgotten City really shines. 

Visually, the game’s environments are expertly crafted both from an artistic and a level design perspective. The titular Forgotten City is one of the most memorable spaces in games I have encountered and it was extremely fun to carefully learn its rules and bend them to my will. On PS5, the game looks great with stellar lighting and draw distances. Again, the character models can be a little uncanny at times but their speech helps alleviate that. My favorite environment detail is the statues scattered throughout the city. These things will sometimes whisper clues to the player and passing them almost always results in this grating sound as they turn their heads to follow the player. It’s a spooky feeling being around these things, almost like what I would imagine being around Weeping Angels from Doctor Who would be like. Sound design is well mixed and helps add to the immersion, especially the voice acting. 

Overall, the world that The Forgotten City sets up is believable, has a certain logic to it, and is easy to get sucked into. 

Playing through The Forgotten City was a delightfully familiar, yet mysterious experience. I started to remember a few character details that carried over from the original mod into this game but as I started to get to endings there were more surprises to uncover. This game has some moments that left my jaw on the floor. 

By the end of the game, I had built up a fondness for these characters that I didn’t expect. The final send-off was one of the happiest moments I’ve seen in a game. I am amazed that this team was able to capture such a wide range of emotions and stories with such a tightly designed game. There are constraints sure but what is here is special and I think it’s one of the brightest releases of the year so far. 

If you’ve made it this far without playing the game, I implore you once again. .

Please, play The Forgotten City. 

SCORES

GAMEPLAY - 9/10

VISUALS - 8/10

SOUND - 9/10

CONTROLS - 7/10

REPLAY VALUE - 9/10

OVERALL - 8.4/10

More information can be found on the official website. Screenshots were captured using the native features of the PS5. A digital copy was provided for this review. 

An equally exciting adventure game can be found in our Death’s Door review. For a weirder adventure, read our review of NieR Replicant on PS4 and for something even weirder check out our review of Everhood on Nintendo Switch.