Solve a Time Loop Murder Mystery Before You Turn Into a Golden Statute in The Forgotten City

In the year 2015 a mod came out for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim called The Forgotten City. It was a shockingly well-made mod that told a unique story and had production values that were extremely uncommon for mods. It was so well loved that it even won a National Writer’s Guild Award. Now it’s becoming a standalone game, still titled The Forgotten City.

The game sees you traveling 2000 years into the past and finding an ancient Roman city hidden in a cave. There are 26 people left living here, and they all follow something known as The Golden Rule. The idea behind it is simple: should any one citizen commit a sin, all 26 of them will be turned into golden statutes. The problem is that this fate clearly happened to them, so now you need to explore the city and figure out who committed said sin and how to stop them. If you can figure out the deal behind The Golden Rule in the process, all the better.

It’s certainly interesting getting to see the same situation play out over and over again, and knowing you can change how it goes this time. Since the game will offer multiple solutions for its puzzles, you can learn how to solve something then abuse the time loop to solve it before you should be able to. Or you can just grab a bow and shoot the problem. This may count as breaking The Golden Rule though, so do so with caution.

This isn’t the first time a mod has managed to achieve the goal of becoming a full game. Both Dear Esther and The Stanley Parable started their lives as mods for Half-Life 2. Popular first-person horror shooter Cry of Fear was originally a mod for the original Half-Life, while horror wave shooter Killing Floor began life as an Unreal Tournament 2004 mod.

If you want to toss The Forgotten City on your Steam wishlist, you can do so here. You can also head here to try out the original Skyrim mod.