The Forgotten City (Xbox Series X)

Societal living depends on humans all agreeing to be reasonable. There would be little benefit to communal living if you legitimately believed your neighbor was always at risk of hurting you or stealing from you, and in time civilizations enshrined those basic understandings in a system of laws. However, there are still people willing to break such rules for one reason or another, but in The Forgotten City, that isn’t an option. A small community of people trapped in a city at the bottom of a chasm know that they must live without sin, for if even one person commits a crime, everyone will die.

 

The Forgotten City is a first-person narrative adventure where you find yourself as the latest person to stumble into this small community with its strict rule, but this threat hanging over everyone isn’t just some societal contract. All around the city you will find what seem to be statues of gold often posed in fear and anguish, and before you’ve started to really scrape the surface of what’s going on in this strange place you are made aware these are citizens who failed to follow the rule back when their own group found the place. The city itself is currently steeped in Roman culture and architecture, the group of a little over twenty people residing there having settled in despite learning they’re trapped but thankfully they’re not entirely uncomfortable. There’s room for farming and comfortable living, but the community is certainly feeling the pressure of the draconian “Golden Rule” imposed on them, both in what it entails and what it doesn’t cover. What qualifies as a sin is put under a microscope as you learn of people who still suffer in this small group, things like greed and manipulation able to take root without the the threat of retaliation. A man can charge exorbitant prices for life-giving medicine since stealing it would get you killed anyway, and since this threat hanging over everyone didn’t exactly lay out what qualifies as a sin, everyone has their own idea of where morality starts and ends.

 

Your arrival is a bit more unusual than most though, as you aren’t even from the same time period as the others. Most residents of this forgotten city arrived around the time of the Great Fire of Rome, this in itself sewing some discontent as a few arrivals have to hide their Christian faith due to them being blamed for that atrocity. However, while there is an uneasy air in the community, there is a relative peace up until the day of your arrival, as you have specifically been called to this place in time because someone is about to break the Golden Rule and doom everyone. However, the same ritual that allowed you to enter this part of the past also allows for the day to repeat, but you might quickly realize that you could just witness the rule being broken and essentially solve that part of the mystery fairly easily. Instead, the mystery extends out from this, the player given extra time to get to know the citizens and start to try and find out the mysterious force behind this edict and hopefully help break everyone free of its grip over their lives.

Interacting with the people of The Forgotten City is actually the crux of much of its interactivity, the player learning who they are to start developing an idea of what is going on and working to help rectify the problems caused by the Golden Rule. Through these chats you begin to see The Forgotten City’s more fascinating examinations of various concepts and ideas. Of course the main one is examining the cultural belief in what is right and wrong. While the idea of bad people exploiting the situation comes up, it also examines how good people might chafe under a system with no room for nuance. Not everyone in this Rome-inspired city is ethnically Roman either, meaning there are cultural barriers and different types of understanding on what constitutes a sin. Your conversations with people as you plunge deeper into the broader mystery of why this city exists in this state begin to more closely examine the subjectivity of morality on top of other ideas like how civilizations develop out of their influences on each other. The Forgotten City isn’t merely looking at the surface level ideas of defining whether a law is just, different characters asked to be self-reflective as revelations caused by this strange civilization make them more deeply consider what they deemed fundamental parts of life. How far would you be willing to defend a belief core to your own identity, how does faith intersect with reality, and where does the line lie in how societal expectations can mold a person all are given at least a character moment that scrutinizes them, but thankfully it’s not all just philosophy thrown at your face with some attempt at objective answers.

 

While your own identity is left for you to sometimes piece together in responses, your dialogue choices do have direct impacts on how others behave and how events unfold. You are able to argue your way out of a bind sometimes and engage in a discussion on the pressing philosophical matter with different outcomes possible based on how the case was argued. Some of these do conflict with the person you’re speaking with though, the characters in The Forgotten City not merely sounding boards for you to throw your opinions at, but the time loop nature of the game actually allows for an interesting form of investigation. Sometimes your words might upset someone so much they’re unwilling to speak with you even if they don’t escalate things to law-breaking territory, but once the ritual pulls you back to the start of the day, they’ll have no memory of the conversation so you can start to figure out how to treat them to keep them agreeable and willing to help with your investigation. It’s quite easy to get to know the small populace of the city because of this, although you won’t actually have to redo the day too many times necessarily to get to the game’s true ending.

 

There is plenty to do in a day in The Forgotten City and the days actually last quite a while before the time loop will kick in regardless of your own activities. Speaking with people and learning their issues will start giving you quests to shoot for, the investigation furthered by the details gathered when helping others out or the knock-on effects of such interactions. Duli, a sweet man with some form of mental disability, is locked up with something important to the broader mystery and can only be freed by the person running the city, but the Magistrate won’t budge on his incarceration for fear Duli might accidentally break the Golden Rule. There is someone in town who is agreeable to freeing Duli, but you need to make people believe in him as a potential candidate for the day’s election, which involves not only orchestrating things so he can help people with the knowledge you have, but making sure no one else runs against him or the Magistrate and complicates the voting process. Actions taken in one loop are wiped in the next, but you get to keep any items you grabbed on each one and there’s even someone willing to help you as an errand boy of sorts so you can send him off to resolve any problems you already know the solutions for in your stead while you pursue other leads. Some items can be used again and again while things like money are exhausted when spent, but seeing different outcomes can help you figure out effective ways to resolve an incident and start building up the understanding you need to start tackling the bigger picture. Getting to know the fully voiced citizens of this forgotten city does lead to a level of familiarity where you have true opinions on them and feelings towards them outside of their function in helping solve the mysteries at play too, the payoff to your work more satisfying since you are trying to assist those who deserve it and free them of those who exploit the situation for personal gain.

While most of your activities in The Forgotten City will involve speaking with people and exploring the area for clues or items that tie into the various personal quests you pick up along the way, there are brief moments of action and danger. These moments don’t really push the game into a new genre though, there being a bit of difficulty present but it’s not like The Forgotten City shifts into an action game because of these sections that demand some reflexes. They feel a bit like they were designed to be obstructions but not to the point someone interested mostly in the mystery solving would be discouraged by their presence, but they allow for some segments to brush up against some ideas that wouldn’t be sold well by passive conversation. The Forgotten City actually began as a mod of the action role-playing game The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim before being reimagined and released as its own game, and while some DNA is evident by the way the game sometimes pulls your attention to something and how conversations are presented visually, The Forgotten City does not intend to bring over the combat focus of the game it was first a part of.

 

The Forgotten City’s focus is instead on the gradual development of an understanding of this small civilization you stumbled into and how that can help you navigate certain situations to bring you closer to the truth. There is a hint system where you get a little whisper of something of importance in case you are a little tangled in the narrative web, but for the most part the journal that helps you track certain details and the game’s rather clean handling of these interconnected personal stories is done rather masterfully. There are fascinating hidden layers to this community to uncover and even multiple endings, although the game quite wisely numbers them and shows you a screen that tells you if you essentially jumped off before the most gratifying ending with the answers that actually make sense of everything. It does give you ways to test the boundaries of the situation though rather than constraining you to a linear narrative, but even in the most complete ending you have some wiggle room on how to resolve things so it can feel more personal and even continue to explore the types of philosophical questions it has been presenting throughout the experience.

 

One of the few unfortunate things about the experience is a lighting bug with some flashing lights likely caused by the various lighting and reflection systems at play in certain areas, but it’s hardly a barrier to that developing sense of space in the small city. You won’t need to get overly familiar with the routines of people since the day is generously long but they still go about their business believably and speak with each other in ways worth eavesdropping on. More importantly, a few moments do you throw you into longer explorations of an interior area like a large temple and the game seems to put time on hold so you aren’t suddenly yanked out by a rule breaker before you can do your work, the conveniences in this time loop story set just right so the repetition is more a tool for undoing mistakes or approaching scenarios like an assassin unaware of the Golden Rule operating in the city from different angles rather than repeating long situations just to get back to where you were last time.

THE VERDICT: The Forgotten City links its compelling mystery to a complex but manageable web of character interactions and issues that tie well not only to the central morality question of an absolute rule but also further ideas of the development of civilization and the inherent qualities of humanity. It tackles lofty questions sometimes with casual conversations and others with deep examination while keeping it a fluid part of working towards the investigation of a situation that was already rife with fascinating potential. A few lighting bugs and some seemingly deliberately simple action don’t impede it from focusing on its excellent narrative and dialogue trees that can feel malleable while reasonably rooted in how interactions are two-sided interactions rather than just a means of expressing yourself.

 

And so, I give The Forgotten City for Xbox Series X…

A FANTASTIC rating. A golden rating for this game about The Golden Rule, The Forgotten City is a strong balance of raising interesting philosophical questions without being a heady rumination on them at all times. The implications of certain smaller interactions tie into the larger themes while still able to build up likeable and despicable characters with clear personalities that exist beyond their purpose in providing information. The player’s own words can set many courses for the chain of events while the time loop is a tidy way of undoing some of the more drastic outcomes the game happily leaves in amidst the more helpful ones, the player needing to socially navigate their way into a better understanding of what’s at play to get closer to the truths that can set everyone free. The cast is small enough to stay manageable and memorable but have a wide range of reactions to their situation, the law hanging over everyone a complication that leads to interesting interactions between them that the player begins to unravel and rectify where needed. While there are surely dark moments, there are also times you may find yourself smiling or laughing and the game even manages to pull off a dialogue choice system where you can feel outwitted. The dialogue choices often feel like an appropriate spread for how you might imagine a response and characters respond believably in turn, and with some alleviation of repetition through how it handles its time loop you are free to explore interactions and new leads without being bogged down by having to set things back up again to get to new developments.

 

Only some technical problems really feel like they detract much from the goings-on of The Forgotten City, even the little incursions of action seeming more an important part of setting tone or establishing believable obstacles while their somewhat simple nature keep them from distracting from the narrative focus. This mystery game has more to provide then sets of clues, but the truth of the matter is still an intriguing part of a narrative that also wants you to examine other matters within the social and historical situation it has constructed. Far more than merely a mod that shed the game it was first attached to, The Forgotten City’s many successes are just as interwoven as the issues troubling the citizenry you come to know quite well while trying to help them.