BEWARE OF POTENTIAL SPOILERS IN COMMENTS!
I played The Forgotten City for free via PS+ Extra and it’s one of my all-time favorite gaming experiences! I urge anybody who hasn’t played it yet but is remotely interested to not look up a goddamn thing about this game beyond this blurb of mine (because spoilers are easy to stumble upon) and play it ASAP!
What is it? It started as a Skyrim mod developed by a lawyer who wanted to make something that’s less of a game per se and more of an interactive story that delves into philosophical quandaries like the nature of morality. It’s a first person game where you go to an island and wind up in an ancient city of sorts. There’s a kind of groundhog day element to it and you have to figure out how to stop that from happening. It’s a bit of a mystery, but nearly all of the gameplay is running around and talking to various characters, all of whom have unique personalities. It’s like a really robust Fallout New Vegas mission, but without all the combat. You’ll probably get through it in 20-40 hours.
Okay, now that that’s outta the way, who wants to rant or gush about this little game?
I enjoyed it a lot. It’s no Outer Wilds, but there’s a lack of good games like this. I think the standout thing it does well is the NPCs and dialogue. Most games that have any kind of time mechanics keep NPCs very simple and don’t let you have this level of choice in your conversations with. I will say, a lot of the initial options for starting a conversation were very similar, but you can talk to people in whatever order and discover stuff on your own which felt cool. I also didn’t love the true ending, one of the earlier ones was actually more satisfying to me. Very interested to see what these devs make next though.