Screenshots & trailers
Review sentiment over time
Weekly positive-review rate (green) and review volume (bars). Dashed lines mark significant patches; the amber line is the start of the current scoring window. Hover the dots to see what drove a dip or a jump.
How this score was computed
The VGC Score is a weighted blend on a press-comparable 0-100 quality scale. Steam approval rates are first calibrated (95% positive on Steam ≈ 89.5 quality, since Steam approval skews high). Press and tracked creator reviews each count ~2x a player review and share one cap against player evidence (creator buy/skip calls pool into an approval rate, calibrated like Steam approval); all-time sentiment is capped and halved (it's context, not verdict); reviews of the current build carry the most weight when a fresh patch anchors the window; and a 'typical game' prior keeps small samples from pegging the scale. Because press reviews and Metacritic user aggregates describe the launch build, their weight decays as the game ages (3-year half-life after a 1-year grace). That's how a game that launched rough can outgrow its old reception once updates win players over. Reviews under 2h playtime (the refund window), non-Steam activations, and free copies are downweighted.
| Component | Positive | Quality (0-100) | Weight (pseudo-reviews) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Press reviews (OpenCritic) | – | 84 | 58 |
| All-time Steam reviews | 96% | 91 | 1000 |
| Metacritic user ratings | – | 85 | 63 |
| Post-patch Steam reviews (trust-weighted) | 98% | 94 | 37 |
| Calibration prior (typical game) | – | 72 | 50 |
Acclaim gate: the raw blend lands at 89.5, but scores above 88 must be earned in front of a mass audience; this verdict rests on 13,942 player reviews, a largely self-selected fanbase. As more players weigh in, the ceiling rises (full scale unlocks at 100,000 reviews).
Scoring window: last 30 days (no significant patch detected) · 106 reviews sampled · 82 total reviews in window · weighted 78.5 up / 1.5 down · computed 2h ago · full methodology →
Press & Creators reviews (89)
Individual verdicts from outlets we track: scored reviews first, most trusted outlets first among them. The small badge is each outlet's trust score: how well its scoring history aligns with players.
- 60
“The Forgotten City is a project that came to be from the fan mod for Skyrim. It's a game with an interesting concept and narrative, that suffers from weak visuals, pacing issues, and shoehorned action sections.”
read full review ↗ - 70
“The game handily transcends its mod origins and tells an ambitious and thought-provoking story, but it eventually reaches a point where it doesn’t seem sure how to end.”
read full review ↗ - 90
“The Forgotten City is a fantastic single-player narrative game that transports you, a modern-day person, to an ancient city presented in a stunning visual style and featuring a perfect gaming atmosphere. The game is reasonably priced, but knowledge of a foreign language is essential, as is the "Fatal Error" icon, which appeared all too frequently.”
read full review ↗ - 90
“The Forgotten City is a brilliant piece of narrative work that feels like a time capsule of Skyrim's jank, revitalised with a gripping story that's just long enough that it never loses momentum. It is, as always, hard to fully recommend a Cloud Version of a game that's available elsewhere in a more concrete form, but if you're accepting of the associated 'risks', this is a well-presented and brilliant time loop game and well worth a play.”
read full review ↗ - 90
“I've got a few nitpicks, but when I take a moment to loop back to the good... The Forgotten City is damn great. It's a story that had me hooked from beginning to end with layers I eagerly peeled back, before realizing I was staring at an epic worthy of being told amongst the Roman and Greek greats.”
read full review ↗ - 95
“Filled with interesting plot twists, clever writing, great excelent pacing and with attention to detail, The Forgotten City is by far one of the best adventure games of 2021. Play it for the story, stay for the characters, the architecture and how one event connects to the other. An absolute must have for fans of the genre.”
read full review ↗ - 100
“Uniformly excellent writing, acting, and audio-visual presentation of an ancient Roman city and its imminently doomed citizens make The Forgotten City a mystery well worth solving, and the clever time-looping mechanics make your investigation a lot of fun.”
read full review ↗ - 90
“This game doesn't give a blanket pardon or condone the actions of any state, instead inviting players to ask by what means and to what end the rules of a state and society are created. The Forgotten City implicitly and explicitly goes to bat for the value of education, and it provides a good time while it does it. We all like to think we know something of the world that came before us; seldom is it that a videogame spun out of an adventure in another fantasy game provides an opportunity to truly learn something.”
read full review ↗ - 95
“The Forgotten City is a narrative masterpiece. It had me engaged in the world and it’s characters right from the get go and maintained it throughout the whole game. It’s incredible that Modern Storyteller were able to create the game with a core team of 4 people. If this is the quality of a debut game, I’m extremely excited to see what the team at Modern Storyteller come out with next.”
read full review ↗ - 75
“Some reservations about The Forgotten City's game design keep it from attaining Legion-dary status among the new wave of time loop games, but its exceptional narrative ensures I won't forget it either.”
read full review ↗ - 80
“All in all, The Forgotten City has surprised us with how engaging it is. The time loop mechanic is used to great effect and works much more than a simple gimmick, and the standout is the writing, which keeps you invested line after line. It's not a home run, with some overall clunkiness to the game and certain segments that could easily have been stripped out, but it's definitely a 10-12 hour adventure worth taking, with many paths and possibilities to uncover.”
read full review ↗ - 90
“Deftly written, smart, and consistently clever, The Forgotten City makes for a rousing, spirited adventure that is well worth taking part in. I wish it were longer, but that doesn't do much to knock what has been accomplished here.”
read full review ↗
GameMAG
Slant Magazine
Gaming Professors
Nintendo Life
video games are good
Hu3br
Paste Magazine
ani-game.com
VGChartz
Pure Xbox
PC Invasion…and 77 more tracked reviews.
Patch history
- Patch notes for Version 1.2.1Sep 1, 2021significant · resets scoring window
- Patch notes for Version 1.2Aug 31, 2021significant · resets scoring window
- Version 1.1 of The Forgotten City is now live!Jul 31, 2021