BEWARE OF POTENTIAL SPOILERS IN COMMENTS!
I played The Forgotten City for free via PS+ Extra and it’s one of my all-time favorite gaming experiences! I urge anybody who hasn’t played it yet but is remotely interested to not look up a goddamn thing about this game beyond this blurb of mine (because spoilers are easy to stumble upon) and play it ASAP!
What is it? It started as a Skyrim mod developed by a lawyer who wanted to make something that’s less of a game per se and more of an interactive story that delves into philosophical quandaries like the nature of morality. It’s a first person game where you go to an island and wind up in an ancient city of sorts. There’s a kind of groundhog day element to it and you have to figure out how to stop that from happening. It’s a bit of a mystery, but nearly all of the gameplay is running around and talking to various characters, all of whom have unique personalities. It’s like a really robust Fallout New Vegas mission, but without all the combat. You’ll probably get through it in 20-40 hours.
Okay, now that that’s outta the way, who wants to rant or gush about this little game?
YES! The Outer Wilds does a similar “solve the mystery of the groundhog day scenario” thing. I haven’t beaten that yet, so I’m sure it’s praised for good reason. Majora’s Mask, Returnal, and Deathloop also do groundhog day mechanics, but none of them seem as profound to me. Like, I genuinely had to stop and think for a moment when somebody asked me whether I believed morality was objective or not.
Outer Wilds and The Forgotten City are the only games I know that pull off the time loop mechanic without being annoying and telling a excellent story at the same time.
I really wish there were more like these.
I played both and while trying to pull off similar things they are magnitudes apart in terms of literally any metric.
I guess tfc brings home the ancient history factoids consolation price.
Off course, they are vastly different games with just one common mechanic.