The Forgotten City began life as a Skyrim mod. It followed the Dragonborn as they found themself lost in an abandoned Dwemer ruin, inhabited by members of Tamriel's various races under a curse known as the Dwarves' Law that dictated that "the many shall suffer for the sins of the one."
The mod was a huge success. Its ambitious story received heaps of praise, and many of its characters were considered far better-written than the average Skyrim NPC. It became the first-ever mod to win an Australian Writers Guild Award for its creator, Nick Pearce. Now, the story has been developed into a fully-fledged standalone game. Not only does this new version of The Forgotten City have a lot to offer Skyrim fans, but also those who played through every part of the original mod.
From Skyrim To Ancient Rome
The Forgotten City mod was brilliantly immersive and made great use of Skyrim's pre-existing mechanics while adding its own time travel elements. Fans of the mod, however, will find that the standalone game has evolved far beyond its humble origins. In an interview with Game Rant, Nick Pearce described just some of the huge changes his story has undergone since its inception:
"It’s been completely re-written, with a bunch of massive twists, new characters, puzzles, and four new endings. To give you an idea, the new script is well over double the length of the original at 80,000+ words. I really wanted to make sure that anyone who played the mod–even recently–will be surprised and delighted by all the new content."
The standalone game won't be set in a Dwemer city, but a lost city from Ancient Rome. Freed from the restrictions of Skyrim's lore, this has allowed the new game to play with some aspects of real-world history. The Dwarves' Law—renamed The Golden Rule—is a form of collective punishment, which was common in Roman military practices and mythology.
The Ancient Romans sometimes practiced decimation, randomly killing one in ten men in a cohort of soldiers to punish them for crimes like desertion while still retaining the majority as part of the army. The Forgotten City's images of its citizens frozen in place as the curse turns them to gold are reminiscent of the frozen-in-time bodies famously found encased in ash in the city of Pompeii, which was destroyed by a volcanic eruption in 79 AD.
The Forgotten City's Continued Impact
According to Pearce, the new standalone game's city is also 30% larger than the one found in the original mod. There are four new endings and plenty of new twists along the way. Each one of those endings is completely different from the possible endings seen in the Skyrim mod, and they are also affected in smaller ways by the choices the player made throughout the game. The Forgotten City has greatly expanded from its roots as a mod, but in many ways, it will still feel familiar to fans of The Elder Scrolls 5.
The game, like Skyrim, remains first-person and retains some RPG elements. Fans of Skyrim and the original mod will likely find the standalone game accessible, but with a story that is far more character-driven than the last Elder Scrolls game. Some characters from the mod have returned in different ways, but many are brand new. Years after the mod first achieved success, The Forgotten City still has a huge amount to offer Elder Scrolls fans. If the storytelling of The Elder Scrolls 6 is half as interesting as The Forgotten City's, the next game may be able to step out of Skyrim's shadow.
The Forgotten City releases July 28 on PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.