Forgotton Anne turns discarded objects into citizens, and it still holds up 8 years later

Forgotton Anne turns a simple idea into one of the most striking adventure games of its era: everything the human world loses ends up somewhere, and that somewhere has a government, a rebellion and a woman with a device that can drain the life out of you. ThroughLine Games built that premise into a 2D cinematic adventure that mixes puzzle platforming with adventure game elements, and Square Enix Collective published it. It came to Microsoft Windows, Xbox One and PlayStation 4 first, then macOS, then Nintendo Switch, then iOS and Android. The premise is good. The execution is better.

Trailer, via Square Enix Collective.

A World Built From Missing Socks

Forgotton Anne takes place between the real world and a fictional world called Forgotten Lands. It is a magical parallel universe where lost objects live. The game calls them forgotlings. They are creatures made of mislaid things — old toys, letters, single socks, discarded lamps — and every one of them hopes to be remembered and returned to the real world. That hope is the engine of the whole story. It gives the smallest object a motive, and it makes the setting feel inhabited rather than decorated.

Forgotton Anne uses a hand-drawn anime aesthetic, and it is the right call. The art carries the fantasy and the sadness at once. An orchestral score performed by the Copenhagen Philharmonic Orchestra backs it up. The music does not fight the hand-drawn look. It lets the world breathe.

Anne, Bonku and the Arca

You play as Anne, the Enforcer who keeps order in the Forgotten Lands. Her master is Bonku, and both of them want to return to the human world. Standing in the way is a rebellion that could stop that return. Anne’s job is to extinguish it.

She carries a device called an Arca. The Arca can drain the energy of the forgotlings, and that energy is called Anima. This is the sharpest idea in the game. Anne is not a hero with a sword. She is an officer with a tool that unmakes people. The Arca turns every encounter into a question about what she is willing to do, and the game is smart enough to let that question sit.

The rebellion is led by Fig, a dress mannequin with a face on their chest, and their ally Bulb, a cloaked light bulb with a top hat. Those two designs tell you everything about the game’s sense of humor and its sense of menace. A mannequin and a light bulb should not be threatening. In Forgotton Anne, they are.

Puzzle Platforming With Weight

Forgotton Anne is a 2D side-view game. It combines puzzle platforming with adventure game elements, and it is single player. The platforming is not the point on its own. It is the delivery system for the story.

That choice matters. A game about lost things should feel deliberate. When you solve a room in Forgotton Anne, you have usually solved a small problem about who deserves to keep existing. The adventure elements carry the conversations, the choices and the consequences. The platforming carries you between them.

Release Schedule

Forgotton Anne rolled out over more than a year and a half, platform by platform.

The staggered launch is worth noting for one reason. The game arrived on PC and consoles in May 2018 with no prior reputation, and it still built one.

Fig and Bulb Are the Best Thing Here

The rebellion is not a faceless mob. Fig leads it, and Fig is a dress mannequin with a face on their chest. Bulb is a cloaked light bulb with a top hat. These are the antagonists, and they are also the argument.

Anne’s orders come from Bonku. Bonku wants to go home. Fig and Bulb want the forgotlings to stop being disposable. Both sides have a case, and Forgotton Anne does not pretend otherwise. The Arca is the tiebreaker, and it belongs to Anne.

This is where the game earns its reputation. It could have been a cute platformer about a girl in a strange land. Instead it is a story about an enforcer deciding whether the order she keeps is worth keeping. That is a heavier game than the hand-drawn art suggests, and the contrast is the point.

The Score and What It Means

Forgotton Anne holds an 8.0/10 critic aggregate across seven outlets. That number is fair, and it is also a little misleading, because the game’s strengths are not evenly spread.

The art direction, the score and the central Arca mechanic are the strongest parts. The puzzle platforming is solid without being exceptional. The staggered platform release means the Switch, iOS and Android versions arrived well after the first three platforms, and that is a real cost for anyone who found the game late.

What matters is that Forgotton Anne commits to its premise. A world made of lost objects is a premise that could have stayed a gimmick. ThroughLine Games turned it into a place with a ruler, a rebellion, a mannequin with a face on their chest and a light bulb in a top hat. The game asks what an enforcer owes the people she enforces against, and it does not hand you an easy answer.

A follow-up, Forgotlings, arrived on February 17, 2026. That is the clearest sign the first game did its job. Forgotton Anne is not a forgotten object. It is the rare indie adventure that knows exactly what it is about.

Forgotton Anne · game review · indie adventure · puzzle platformer · Square Enix Collective · ThroughLine Games