The Forgotten City Review - We're Not in Skyrim Anymore (PS5)

“Hey, you. You’re finally awake.” Oh wait, sorry. Wrong game. While The Forgotten City did spring from an extremely popular quest mod for Skyrim, the full game is far from the mod and the game that sprouted the seed of an idea that was ultimately reimagined into what it is now. At the outset, similarities are there sure. But this isn’t an RPG, and the combat that it does feature is rather secondary overall. The Forgotten City is a narrative adventure, a mystery that springs from a lost underground city, thousands of years old. And once it has its hooks in you, the pull of this perfect civilization won’t let you go.

The mystery starts quickly as I pursue another explorer into an ancient temple and find myself trapped underground in the ruins of an ancient Roman city with no way out. Golden statues litter the environment in various horrifying poses, looking like a rich man’s version of Pompeii. And then a portal. Suddenly the ruins aren’t so ruined, and I find myself thousands of years in the past, at the height of this great city’s prominence. I quickly discover that those who find their way to the city are unable to find a way out, and that they are all governed by something called The Golden Rule, a law that ties the fate of everyone in the city to an individual’s sin. Should even one person within the city sin, everyone would be punished. Thus far, everyone seems to live in a harmonious balance, a teetering knife’s edge that makes you wary of everyone around you. After all, you must have implicit trust in everyone, while also not being able to trust a single person. As the newest citizen, I am presumably subject to this law, something I’d rather not test out.

So I spend my earliest moments getting my bearings; learning the city layout, talking to the various citizens to learn important knowledge and trying hard not to piss anyone off or inadvertently “sin” myself. The city exists within a tenuous caste system, a hierarchy nobody wants to threaten for fear of breaking The Golden Rule and invoking its ominous unseen wrath. I’ve been told by the local magistrate that I was summoned because The Golden Rule had been broken, and I was brought to the day it happened in order to prevent it from occurring. Talk about pressure, right? Still, that’s a lot of talk for something I hadn’t seen with my own eyes yet. Part of the fun of The Forgotten City is the ability—and need—to pressure test assorted claims to varying results.

My investigation continued, now on a mission from the magistrate to find out who intended to break The Golden Rule. Was it the slimy merchant keeping life-saving medicine from a dying woman? Was it those who wanted to challenge the magistrate’s power? What about the man preparing to commit suicide because of his situation? Wandering towards the baths—the place I had entered this city in its future ruined state—I encounter another new person; an assassin on a mission to kill a certain individual believed to be part of a cult. My chat with the assassin didn’t go great, and he deigned to kill me as well. Looks like my time in this forgotten city was rather short lived. Or was it?

The Forgotten City Review – Abide by the Rule

Then, the twist. The Golden Rule was real after all, and quite literal indeed. His sin brought the statues to life around me. The assassin, who had intended to kill me, was struck by an arrow, shot by a golden statue now come to life. His body quickly turned to gold and he became a new statue. But, for the loop to continue, I had to make a mad dash to the portal to reset the day, and start all over again. Using my newfound knowledge, I could now approach situations differently. But how does one kill an assassin without that murder itself breaking The Golden Rule? The answer to that question is rather clever, becoming a prime example of how you must twist the events of the day in order to move forward without resetting the entire world back to its original state.

The Forgotten City asks a lot of questions around the subject of “what is sin?” Upon learning that The Golden Rule is indeed real, it became a test of what exactly triggers it. Murder, it seems, is quite obvious on the list, as is theft. But what about deception? Political manipulations? Suicide, even? Part of this journey in figuring who or what is behind The Golden Rule is figuring out exactly what triggers it. At times, you’ll be doing what you think is right, only to suddenly have to make a mad dash back to the portal. But do you go straight to the portal to reset the day, or perhaps try to swipe a few things along the way? After all, sin has already been committed… there’s no harm in breaking The Golden Rule twice.

I ran the loop countless times, trying assorted ways of saving and manipulating this fated day in the city; figuring out what sin was considered bad enough to get everyone in the city turned to gold. The Forgotten City then becomes quite the commentary on modern society, filled with clever little references to recent events, including the Karen meme, the pandemic, and other situations to help you feel like a traveler out of place in this ancient world; Yet, perhaps not so out of place at all. History does tend to repeat itself, in some kind of sick loop that we can’t seem to learn from. I’d rather not get into this topic too much right here, for fear of spoiling some of the mystery, but as I manipulated the outcome of elections and got suckered into scams with zero repercussions for those responsible while the vulnerable suffer, it starts to open a clear dialog on the moral justifications people find to excuse reprehensible behavior.

Sometimes my loops restarted accidentally. Sometimes I intentionally broke a rule to manipulate the loop to my advantage, or forced someone else’s hand in order to see the outcome. But each time, my knowledge and inventory persisted. I chased red herrings and side missions that themselves looped back around and became part of main missions. I got my hands on a mystical golden bow, wielding what seemed to be the powers of the gods themselves. I wove between talking with the citizens of the city and exploring unseen depths of the city that aren’t immediately obvious. The mystery weaves throughout, and the ability to manipulate things through the loop to progress became something of a super power.

Certain tasks seemed all but impossible, but multiple loops on, I learned of clever ways to solve problems without tripping up this city’s silent alarms via its ever watchful eyes. Each new loop, conversation, and exploration becomes a new puzzle piece to exploit, and it all kept me glued to the mystery of The Forgotten City as more and more was revealed. And with multiple endings to chase, I wasn’t satisfied the first time I completed the game, almost stumbling into an ending by accident. Nor was I happy when I full uncovered the secrets of the city and The Golden Rule. I began even more intentionally seeing what I could do to manipulate the outcome and receive the remainder of the game’s four endings. And even within those endings, there are certain variations based on actions you take within your adventure in the city.

The Forgotten City Review – Tales From the Loop

As I explored these assorted outcomes, I did wish that The Forgotten City had some better quality of life features for tracking who you had talked to about what. At one point you receive a citizen registry, but it doesn’t update with added notes as you talk to people and learn things throughout the city. And the city isn’t huge, but some kind of map and location tracker for people would have been nice, though eventually you’ll learn everyone’s regular haunts well enough that finding a specific person doesn’t become too much of an issue. Additionally, sometimes unexplored conversation options that were important to moving forward were hidden behind greyed out conversation prompts I had selected before, which made exploring some conversation trees difficult.

The inventory system feels like an awkward tacked on addition that doesn’t seem to have much bearing on the gameplay at all. You will definitely use items that you collect throughout the game (which persist through loops… remember that), but their use is contextual in nature, and the massive list of items itself serves almost no purpose. There are also a number of items I collected that didn’t seem to actually have any bearing on anything, and while these might have been intended to be red herrings, the system feels like the most awkwardly implemented part of The Forgotten City. In fact, anything involving menus tended to be a bit rough around the edges (quests are also of note here). An early patch might fix this, and it’s minor enough anyway that it never really impacted my broader experience.

I also noticed some minor logic hiccups like citizens or my own character knowing things they shouldn’t yet (or not knowing something they should), which led to a couple of confusing moments. In one case, I talked to one citizen about an assassin in the baths before I knew that there was a threatening figure there. However, none of these were ever game breaking, and I imagine that a lot of The Forgotten City’s development time went into mapping the logic system to coordinate the actions and knowledge of everyone present in the city to persist and remain consistent over the course of multiple loops and myself putting pressure on every facet of it. In and of itself, that’s particularly impressive.

Visually, the city is stunning, though the characters’ facial animations can be a bit janky and soulless at times. However, considering The Forgotten City was developed by a core team of just three people, I’m ridiculously impressed with how polished the game is as a whole. And it pulls off even its most obvious of reveals with such a charm and fun way of doing things that everything manages to feel surprising and delightful.

And its length feels just right too. It doesn’t overstay its welcome, but neither is it so short that it feels like a “small” game. Poking and prodding at the loop will be cause for a variety of playthrough completion times, but should you chase a full understanding of the mysteries held within, expect to spend anywhere from 5-10 hours with the game, provided you aren’t using guides. And I’d really recommend taking this one on as blind as possible. The sheer delight at finally figuring out another lynchpin in the mystery of the loop can’t be overstated. Explore every corner. Talk to everyone. Talk to everyone again. And then shoot Desius with your golden bow just because the bastard deserves it.

The Forgotten City is a consistently engaging mystery that I couldn’t help but get trapped in. It features an amazing blend of narrative mystery buoyed by some fun bouts of exploration and light combat, just enough to really break up the pace. It’s a game that encourages you to put pressure on its established boundaries to see what you can break and change. There’s a brilliant web of mystery within a time loop that you can manipulate, delivering some great and clever commentary around a whole bunch of topics. Seeing how far Modern Storyteller has come from “The Forgotten City” mod to this full game makes me beyond excited to see what Nick Pearce and the team come up with next.

The Forgotten City review code provided by publisher. Reviewed on PS5. For more information, please read our Review Policy.