The Forgotten City

The Forgotten City is a mystery adventure role-playing game created by the Australian studio Modern Storyteller. It was published by Dear Villagers, with extra funding from Film Victoria. The game is a standalone version of a highly praised mod for *The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim*, which first appeared in 2015. The full game came out in July 2021 on Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. A cloud-based version for the Nintendo Switch followed in September 2021. In both the original mod and the 2021 release, the story examines how humanity relates to its own laws. The full game starts with the protagonist waking up after being pulled from the Styx River in Italy. A woman who rescued them asks for help finding her friend, who vanished while exploring nearby ruins. When the player investigates, they are sent back in time to 65 CE, where the ruins have become a living Roman city. As the story unfolds, the player learns that the city is protected by gods: if anyone commits a sin, all residents are turned to gold—a rule called the Golden Rule (originally the Dwarves' Law). Golden statues of past inhabitants whisper, but only the player can hear them. No one in the city knows exactly which sins trigger the rule, and records often contradict each other. The player can re-enter the portal they came from to restart the time loop if the Golden Rule is triggered, keeping physical items and knowledge. The plot was heavily changed from the mod: the setting moved from a Dwemer ruin to ancient Rome, and much of the script was rewritten. Multiple endings were added or expanded. Every character has a detailed backstory and viewpoint, making player choices more complex. The developer plans to add mod support in the future. The protagonist wakes up after being rescued from the Styx by a woman named Karen. She asks them to find Al Worth, another survivor who disappeared while exploring Roman ruins filled with golden statues of ordinary people. The player finds Al dead by suicide, with a note warning them to die rather than touch a strange portal in the ruins. The portal sends the player back in time to the living city, where a farmer named Galerius leads them to the magistrate Sentius. Sentius explains that the city, home to fewer than two dozen people, is bound by the Golden Rule: if one person sins, everyone turns to gold.