Video games fans are actually pretty important when you think about it. Not saying this because I’m a hardcore fanboy myself, but how important the fans are to the industry. The sales of a video game, the support for future projects, and developers gaining feedback so when it comes to the next big project they know what areas to improve in. The fans are important despite how critical and whiny some of them can be. Then there are the fans who do more than just buy the latest release to a franchise they love and talk online about it. They partake in what we call a community, which itself is on a different level from fans. Communities consist of creators who blend their skills and appreciation to create a unique personality they can share with others. I myself would fall under the category of a creator, because I create and share content that not only celebrates the positive quality of games but aims to further my writing and analysis skills each day. Communities are composed of artists, musicians, cosplayers, short film makers, and for today’s subject are modders. What is a video game modder anyways?
A modder is someone who takes the existing assets of a game, usually found in the coding, and uses them to create his own project. Whether that is an expansion, new weapons and gear, gameplay modifiers reimagining of the main game, or a whole new experience entirely. Modders were like pre-independent developers before the massive rise of independent developers, which is great that I brought that up because some modders eventually become developers who work within the video game industry. Some of the most popularly acclaimed mods I can think of would include Mel’s Story for Portal 2, Daughters of Ash for Dark Souls, and a nice fun fact is that The Stanley Parable for Half-Life 2 was adapted into its own game. Proving my previous point. However, the biggest modding community and the most active has to be for Skyrim. You should know what Skyrim is by now, and if you don’t then you’ve probably been living under a rock these last two decades. It’s the 5th installment in The Elder Scrolls series, one of the best selling games of all time, and one of the most highly acclaimed. Sitting above a ninety percent on Metacritic and having near perfect review scores.
I’m not really a massive Skyrim fan myself even though it contains everything I practically want in a video game. A large open world with dozens of locations and temples to stumble across. A fantasy setting rich in lore, character, history, and story. Dozens of builds to create and endless hours of play due to the massive amounts of content. However, it just didn’t click with me. The quest design was limited down to, “Go here. Do this. Come back. Get rewarded.” The treasure I collected from catacombs didn’t feel all that impactful. While there was a mass amount of build variety it felt like you could easily become good at everything. Then there was the story which felt lacking. I know some people will say, “You don’t play Skyrim for the story,” and it’s more about forging your own adventure rather than the one the game makes you follow. However, one year before Fallout: New Vegas came out and was similar in vein. However, New Vegas was better RPG design wise and the political ideologies made for an intriguing plot to get invested in. However, I can respect Skyrim and the fans who adore it so much. They grew up playing this game and half of their happiest memories in gaming stemmed from this fantasy RPG. Not going to lie, almost all my greatest friends grew up playing Skyrim and they helped me get into gaming.
A lot of people tell me that Skyrim is more fun when you play it with mods. When you mess around with the in game elements and transform a fantasy adventure into the most funniest fever dream you’ll ever have. Search up Skyrim on Youtube and half the videos you will encounter will be about funny mods. Whether that’s transforming the dragons in Thomas the Tank Engine, or turning yourself into a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. Skyrim mods are great, but there are some which take it a step further. Which brings us to today’s subject and bold story.
Nick Pearce, once a modder for New Vegas and now the director of a four man team. Back in 2015, he published a mod for Skyrim titled The Forgotten City which not only added a whole new area but an originally written questline to explore. Nick was also experimenting with time loop elements, which if you don’t know is basically when you repeat the same day and events over and over until you break the loop. He had to consider the gameplay elements and write them carefully into the story. Creating a setting where the inhabitants were trapped in a city due to one of them performing a sin to anger the gods, and you have to figure out who or how to stop it. The mod explored morality and how we as humans define what is right and wrong. The mod was way better than it had the rights to be and even won an Australian writer’s award.
The Forgotten City was a massive success, and Pearce wanted to take his little project to new heights. Assembling a small team of indie developers, Pearce spent the next four years of life converting The Forgotten City into its own separate video game. Cutting the ties it had to the world of Skyrim. He took heavy inspiration from Greek, Roman, and Egyptian dialectics to create a story that explored not only human nature but the philosophical beliefs found across history. He spent countless nights working on The Forgotten City and even worked eighty hours a week by himself so that his team wouldn’t have to be forced into crunch time. Well that’s a little extreme. The Forgotten City was soon finished up in 2021 and released in the summer of that year. Surprisingly, it was a massive success just like when it was released as a mod. The writing and story was still brilliant, the Greek setting made the game more unique, and across the board critics praised it. Some even considered The Forgotten City to be Game of The Year.
I’ve been wanting to play this game since last year and have been excited since then. I’m a massive fan of both time loop games and Greek inspired settings. Greek and Roman culture especially since I love the architecture, government, and mythology they centered themselves around. Hades, a Greek mythological game, being one of my favorite video games ever made for how it interpreted the gods, goddesses, and historical figures of Greek mythology. I was super excited to finally step into the Forgotten City and luckily it did not disappoint. This game is truly brilliant and achieves everything it sets out to do. The Forgotten City is such an underrated gem which you shouldn’t skip out on. Today we’ll be talking about The Forgotten City and why it deserves your attention. So remember to behave and not break the Golden Rule!
Story
The player wakes up along an isolated riverbed with no recollection of how they ended up there in the slightest. There’s no one in sight and the only person to greet them is the one who claims to have hoisted them out of the river. A black hooded woman by the name of Karen. She was able to save you just in time, but now asks a big favor in return. Her friend Al, an explorer, went into the nearby ruins to see what was there and if they could contact anybody for help. He hasn't returned for hours and Karen is worried that something bad happened to him. She wants you to go into the ruins yourself and see what happened. You agree to help and slowly navigate yourself through the ruins. You try to pick up a trinket within a temple, but the floor collapses and you are dumped into the ruins of an abandoned roman city. Statues of gold lie scattered around the city, and they take the form of human inhabitants. They scream in anguish and pain, almost as if they are trapped in time. You find a body hanging from a tree and attached to it is a note. It claims that he has been trapped there for a longtime, and the only way to escape the city is through death. The note was written by none other than Al. It’s hard to believe at first, because the Al you were sent to look for was a young explorer. Next to the tree is another temple and within a portal. The portal swirls of unknown energy and mystery, and seeing how there is nowhere else to go within the city you step right in. Being transported across space and time.
When you reach the other side of the portal you stumble across the city again only this time it’s not in complete shambles. A glistening and marble spires light the city aglow, and a man stands looking over the city only to then greet you. His name is Galerius and claims to be a humble farmer within a small community. He decides to give you a tour of the small city and from there we slowly meet the inhabitants. The shopkeeper, three man army who patrol the streets, and soon the magistrate of the city. Sentius, a roman politician who looks after the people and makes sure they obey under a law they deem The Golden Rule. It states that if a single person were to commit a sin then the wrath of the gods will be inflicted onto the people. No one will survive, but it appears someone is going to break The Golden Rule that day. Sentius reveals to the player they were transported back in time, and he is the only individual who knows of your abilities because if The Golden Rule were to be broken then he would have to rush back to the shrine you popped in and sacrifice his life to open another time portal for you to restart the day. Sentius wants the player to figure out who is going to break The Golden Rule and put them behind bars so they can’t do so. The player agrees as they need to find a way to get out of the city, but through each loop they learn something new about the city. Info more sinister than it seems and the truth of where they actually are.
Gameplay
The Forgotten City is a time loop game, and if you don’t know or you possibly didn’t take the time to read the intro then I’m disappointed in you. Not ashamed. Just kind of baffled you decided to skip ahead in this review. The day restarts whenever the Golden Rule is broken and you go back to the portal in time before the city collapses. What breaks the Golden Rule is any act of sin, and this can take on many forms. Whether it’s murder or theft. These acts can be caused by any character around you or yourself if you're willing to go that length. Just remember if you die before reaching the portal or while exploring the world then it’s game over. You have to reload a save to continue.
You explore the city, learn the ins and outs of it, and talk to the residents of the city. There are about twenty characters to talk to, and what I like is that the developers took their time to think out each character’s writing. Consider their personality, their background, and how they serve the crucial plot. Some may not get involved as much as others, but they serve some help to the story and settle you into the world quickly. I also like how condensed the world is, so that you quickly lay out a mental blueprint of where locations are. By talking to the residents of the city, they give you information of who they suspect will break the Golden Rule, but they also may ask you to help them. Whether that be to retrieve a bow in a temple, figure out who is writing graffiti on the walls, or even prevent a man from taking his life. You can activate a quest marker to pinpoint what NPC to talk to next, but the game won’t always tell you how to solve the next step to a problem. You’ll make mistakes while venturing throughout the world and maybe an NPC will trigger the wrath of the gods. However, this isn’t always a bad case as info you collected during previous loops will carry over to future loops. This allows you to warn characters ahead of time of what may happen, outsmart them with info you risked discovering, or perhaps prevent an act of violence happening.
One mechanic they introduce later on is to tell Galerius what is about to happen. That way you don’t have to waste time and Galerius can quickly rush to each scenario to help out. You’re also supposed to do this for a late game quest which I won’t spoil for this review. Anyways, your main goal is to figure out how to escape the city, or to prevent the Golden Rule from happening. One of the many items you carry across loops is an ordinary bow and a golden bow. The bow is used to attack foes, but since any act of violence will trigger the Golden Rule it’s more of a way to start a new loop quickly. The Golden Bow on the other hand is used to turn individuals into gold and may be useful against some enemies you encounter later on in the game. I really want to dive deeper into The Forgotten City and what major events and quests happen later in the game, but this game is enjoyed best going in with a blind eye. Sorry, no spoilers. Hopefully you can and save the inhabitants of this forgotten city.
Thoughts
The Forgotten City is an outstanding experience, another great example of how to do a time loop game, and it engaged with me more than I had hoped to expect. I don’t really have any criticisms with this game and any I do have aren’t related to the design or writing. Let’s just get my main gripe out of the way first. It takes about five hours to reach the true ending, which is fine. It doesn’t overstay its welcome, tries to drag out the story longer than it really should, and is a great game to play during a lazy afternoon. However, it being a time loop game about discovery means it has low replay value. If you know exactly what happens and what the big twists are then it means the next playthrough will have less of that magic seen during the first. My other complaint is that this game was made for next gen hardware, because on Xbox One and PS4 the game’s textures are fuzzy or you’ll experience a ton of framerate drops. Yet, the game as a whole is functional and is more stable than any game Bethesda has released.
The Forgotten City does a lot of things right in both game design and writing. Since it was once a Skyrim mod that would mean the quest design is linear. It doesn’t take too long to figure out the solution to a problem, but unlike Skyrim the solution isn’t always pointed out immediately. The game still wants you to figure out information on your own and experience the satisfaction of when you finally figure out the pieces to a puzzle. Some quests can’t be figured out right away and you’ll either have to come back with more knowledge or on future loops. There are even times when another NPCs’ quest line will tie into another, so it gets the player to actually interact with the setting and familiarize themselves with the cast. The game may not be as imaginative as Outer Wilds, but it's probably the most accessible time loop game out there.
The story and writing on the other hand was surprisingly good. Working towards the main objective is fun as you discover the mysteries and truths about the city. Learning the rule has been there for hundreds of years and Romans weren’t the first one to step forth into the city. There’s involvement of Greek mythology, roman culture, and at some point egyptian. The game dives into the Roman government near the beginning and explains why the Romans and Greeks prospered longer than any other race in history. They built aqueducts to supply themselves with clean water, created a system of laws that kept proper order, voting system to determine laws and the punishment of crimes, had a healthy diet, and kept themselves clean. I love how the game explored Roman politics, and showed that even though there were flaws it was mostly stable.
Then there’s the philosophical theme of The Forgotten City which ties perfectly with the story. What counts as a sin, or specifically what is considered right and wrong? Across the centuries humans have made different government structures and rules, and during those moments they changed the definition of what is considered right? Of course murder and theft is wrong, but across our journey we witness horrible acts that apparently don’t break the Golden Rule. Stuff like suicide, life time debt, and inhumane surgery. These are vile acts, but why didn’t they break the Golden Rule? That’s where the question, “What is right and wrong?” come into play. The way we define it will always be different, but there will never be a perfect definition. Humans are flawed and we are bound to commit mistakes and occasionally acts of sin.
This game is truly a marvel and I strongly recommend everyone to play it at least once. It’s short, but what it presents to you is terrific and memorable. An experience that will truly stick around in your head. The story, philosophy, big twists, and characters all add up to make one of the best written games in recent memory. It’s currently available on Xbox Games Pass, which is what I played it through and was an absolute steal. In the end I give The Forgotten City a 9.5/10 for excellence at best. Masterpiece!
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