The Forgotten City asks players to solve a murder, break a time loop and decide whether an entire Roman town deserves to die for one person’s mistake. It began life in 2015 as a mod for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Six years later, Modern Storyteller rebuilt it as a full game, and the result is one of the sharpest mystery adventures of its release year.
Dear Villagers published the full version in July 2021 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S. A cloud-based version followed on Nintendo Switch in September 2021.
Trailer, via IGN.
A Rescue on the Tiber
The Forgotten City opens in the present day. The player character wakes after being rescued from floating down the Tiber River in Italy. A young woman named Karen pulled them out, and she wants a favor: find Al Worth, another person she saved, who vanished while investigating nearby ancient ruins.
Those ruins hold a portal. It sends the player back to 65 CE, when the city was alive and under Roman rule.
The Golden Rule and Its Statues
The city is home to twenty-six lost souls. It operates under a rule enforced by the gods: if one person commits a sin, everyone dies. The punishment is transformation into gold. Statues of previous inhabitants litter the city, and the player can hear them whispering.
No resident knows exactly which acts count as sins. Records contradict each other. The uncertainty is the engine of the whole game.
Sentius, Galerius and a Ritual to Proserpina
A farmer named Galerius brings the player to the magistrate Sentius. He explains the city’s bind and admits the Golden Rule will break later that same day. He has prepared a ritual to Proserpina, a portal that returns the player to the start of the day whenever the rule is violated.
The loop preserves physical and mental objects — important items and information carry over. Each run lets the player interrogate a different resident and test a different theory.
Four Endings, One Paradox
The Forgotten City has four endings. The first requires shooting Sentius, either with a pistol from the present or with a golden bow that turns whatever it hits into gold. That creates a time paradox: Sentius cannot complete the ritual, but the player and Al are trapped in the ruins and die there.
The other endings turn on discovering the truth about Sentius. The game’s stated goal is a paradox where the Golden Rule is never broken, Sentius never performs the ritual, and the player returns home.
Combat exists. Violence gets you only so far. Questioning people is the actual verb.
What the Loop Changes
| Element | The 2015 Skyrim mod | The 2021 full game |
|---|---|---|
| Setting | A Dwemer ruin | Ancient Rome, 65 CE |
| Script | Original version | Rewritten and updated |
| Endings | Original set | Multiple added and expanded |
| Release | 2015, as a mod | July 2021, as a full game |
The shift from Dwemer ruin to Roman city is the adaptation’s biggest change. It also gives the story a cleaner moral frame. A Dwemer ruin is a puzzle box. A Roman town full of named people with arguments is a court.
Release Timeline
| Date | Release |
|---|---|
| 2015 | The Forgotten City launches as a Skyrim mod |
| July 2021 | Full game launches on Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S |
| September 2021 | Cloud-based version launches on Nintendo Switch |
Modern Storyteller is an Australian studio. Dear Villagers published the game with additional support from Film Victoria.
Where the Game Earns Its Score
The Forgotten City’s best idea is that its residents are not obstacles. Each character has a strong background and a real argument, which makes the moral choices hard rather than decorative. The loop is not a gimmick for replaying content. It is the deduction system.
The weakness is that the game’s own rules stay fuzzy. The specific sins that trigger the Golden Rule are never clear to anyone in the city, and the contradictions are deliberate. That works as theme. It works less well as a puzzle, because a player can spend a run guessing at boundaries the game refuses to draw.
The four endings land. The first one, with the pistol or the golden bow, is the bleakest and the most memorable, and it is the one that best justifies the loop’s cost. The paradox ending is the one the game wants you to chase.
Metacritic’s critic score for the PC version sits at 85 out of 100, based on 34 critics. That number is fair. The Forgotten City is a rare adaptation that improves on its source by narrowing it — one city, one day, one rule, and a cast small enough that every death means something.
Play it for the interrogation, not the combat. The combat is there because games have combat. The interrogation is why this one is worth the trip back to 65 CE.
Score: 8.5 of 10.
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