The Forgotten City, the preview of an adventure that will make you jump in time
The Forgotten City
It is quite common for some developers to start their careers by creating mods for some very famous game. After all, what better way to test your skills as a map designer or storyteller without necessarily having to master very complex development environments? Some games in particular provide very complete tools, which you can start using without major headaches, pulling out some remarkable works. The Modern Storyteller followed exactly this path: in 2015 it launched a big mod for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim that has received many awards, including the Writers Guild Award (it was the first mod ever to win it) especially for the script, so he decided to completely revise it by making it a full commercial game. The mod is called The Forgotten City and is still available for download from Nexus Mods. The full game, to which we have dedicated this preview, has the same title and seems to improve the original from every point of view, so much so that it risks being one of the surprises of 2021 (it will be released on July 28), at least for fans of games of classic role.History
In The Forgotten City the fight will be secondary In The Forgotten City the player finds himself wandering around an ancient Roman city with the aim of discovering the origin of his terrible curse . A sin committed by a single citizen can in fact cause the death of all the others, turning them into golden statues. From this intriguing assumption, a story based on time loops, exploration and dialogues develops, in which you have to travel the length and breadth of the city to discover its mysteries, learning from your mistakes and exploiting the information obtained in each loop to go forward in resolving the case. If you want you can also fight (the protagonist is versed in the art of the arc), but in the title of The Modern Storyteller violence is never the solution. Let's say that in essence it is an investigative role-playing game, in which what matters is to be able to re-tie the various threads that make up the plot, at the same time making difficult moral choices, up to the final resolution, which will change depending on the decisions. taken by the player. There will be multiple endings, although we don't know how many.Dialogue with the characters you meet will be essential to discover the mysteries of the game. The abilities of the protagonist will all be aimed at directing the investigations in a certain direction, exploiting the unique characteristics selected. For example, using charm will lead to very different situations than using intimidation. In this sense The Forgotten City should leave enough free to decide how to behave, thus also increasing the replayability factor. Of course there will also be action sequences, traps and fights, but they will be secondary to the rest. Here the focus is on adventure.
Improvements
From a technical point of view The Forgotten City seems a decisive step forward compared to what is seen in the mod. The Modern Storyteller has revised all aspects of the game, starting with the graphics, improving them so as to make them peculiar. The city itself is completely new, with Roman-inspired architecture and customs. The research done in this sense is really interesting and gives the whole a considerable historical verisimilitude, even with all the limitations of the case. Of the original experience, therefore, only the story seems to be left, even if it has been expanded with more endings, more side missions, many more dialogues and a revision of the old characters, while the rest is completely different. Also consider that the graphic engine used, the Unreal Engine 4, is not that of the mod, which of course was made using the Skyrim engine. Looking at it, it looks like a truly remarkable job, especially when we consider that it was carried out by just three people, although the development took four years.The prospects for The Forgotten City are very bright, and the reason for the peremptory affirmation is the excellent work done with the mod, probably one of the best ever for Skyrim. The talent of the developers has therefore already emerged and the hope is that there are no nasty surprises as regards the revision made to transform the mod into a full game.
