First Impressions: THE FORGOTTEN CITY is an Incredible Story-Driven Game Releasing This Summer

The Forgotten City is an upcoming game from developer Modern Storyteller and publisher Dear Villagers. In the game, you must solve puzzles and figure out the mystery behind the Roman city you end up exploring. Dear Villagers was kind enough to let me play some of the game already and I’ve included my thoughts below. The game is set to release on July 28 on PC (Epic, GOG, Steam), PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S with an MSRP of $24.99. The game will release on Nintendo Switch later this year.

Travel 2,000 years into the past and relive the final days of a cursed Roman city, where if one person sins, everyone dies. Unravel the mystery at the city’s heart by exploiting its deadly time loop, questioning locals, exploring, and solving puzzles. The fate of the city is in your hands.

I really like The Forgotten City. As you play through, you’ll end up having to essentially restart the game, but you’ll keep all your memories and items. It’s similar to a roguelike in that way. This helps you experiment with things and not feel like you’re being punished too harshly. It’s also fun to see how far you can get in a run. I don’t really want to spoil anything, but I do want to say that there are 4 different endings, which gives you a lot of game to play through.

Now, as incredible as the game is, it does have its problems. I have been playing a pre-release build, so there are some bugs and kinks that need to be worked out, but I’m going to ignore those the best I can. Overall, the sound design is pretty good. The voice acting is hit and miss, but it definitely isn’t synced up to the animations very well which can pull you out. The graphics overall are pretty good. They’re not mind blowing, but they’re nothing to scoff at, until the models start moving or talking. That’s when things start breaking down. It’s like looking at a nice late-PS3 or early PS4 title and then when they start moving it feels like you’re in an early PS3 title because of how awkward the animation is. The nice thing is that if you’re willing to overlook the imperfections, this game is incredible at telling its story.

Nick Pearce started Modern Storyteller as a way to tell stimulating stories. The Forgotten City is one of the best story-driven games I’ve played in a long time. The intrigue has me guessing, I was blown away when I didn’t realize (spoiler), and I think it’s going to be amazing when it’s polished.