The Forgotten City

About The Forgotten City

The Forgotten City arrived on July 28, 2021 as a standalone expansion of a beloved mod by developer Modern Storyteller and publisher Dear Villagers. You step into the shoes of a time traveler dropped into a hidden Roman settlement buried beneath the earth. This adventure RPG asks you to navigate a cursed society where twenty-six souls face extinction if just one person sins. The game launched across PC, Mac, and all major consoles including PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S. You play alone in a single-player experience that blends detective work with time loop mechanics to figure out an ancient mystery before the city collapses again.

Gameplay

Your day consists of walking through claustrophobic underground corridors and interrogating the same twenty-six residents repeatedly. Each reset sends you back to the start, forcing you to memorize schedules and dialogue patterns while hunting for clues. You can choose to fight if you want, but violence often triggers the curse and ends the loop instantly. The real work happens when you question people about their secrets, notice small details in their behavior, or manipulate events to trigger specific outcomes. You need to find the Golden Rule violation before the next sun rises. Combat exists as an option for defense, yet the game rewards patience and logic over reflexes. You spend hours piecing together a web of lies and alliances while managing your limited time per cycle.

What Players Think

Critics and players have responded with strong numbers. The title holds an 85.9 out of 100 score on IGDB based on 145 ratings, signaling solid critical reception. Average playtime sits around 12 to 15 hours for a standard run, though completionists often push past that to unlock all forty achievements. Only 36.1 percent of the total player base has managed to earn every trophy or achievement in the game. The rarest challenge is "Minimalist," which only 4.40 percent of players have unlocked. Community moods lean heavily toward curiosity and satisfaction rather than frustration. Most reviewers praise the tight narrative structure and the way the time loop mechanic serves the story without feeling repetitive.

PlayPile's Take

This title costs as little as $3.74 at its historical low on IndieGala, making it a steal for mystery fans. It works best for players who enjoy slow-burn narratives and logical puzzles over action sequences. The 40 achievements offer a nice extra layer of depth if you want to test your memory and deduction skills thoroughly. Do not expect a fast-paced shooter or an open-world sandbox. You will likely spend most of your time talking to NPCs and resetting the day to find better answers. If you can handle reading long dialogues and thinking hard about cause and effect, this game delivers a tight story worth finishing.

Storyline

Travel 2,000 years into the past and relive the final days of a cursed Roman city, where if one person sins, everyone dies. Trapped in a secret underground city during the Roman Empire, twenty-six lost souls cling to life. In this precarious utopia, if one person breaks the mysterious Golden Rule, everyone dies. As a time-traveller drawn two thousand years into the past, you’ll relive their final moments in an endless loop, exploring and interrogating, and changing the course of the day with each secret you uncover. Only by cleverly exploiting the time loop and making difficult moral choices can you hope to solve this epic mystery. Here, your decisions matter. The fate of the city is in your hands.