The Forgotten City review: sliding into your diems

PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X, PC; Modern Storyteller/Dear Villagers
A time-loop murder mystery set in ancient Rome is enlivened by excellent acting, dialogue, and good old-fashioned skulduggery

The genesis of The Forgotten City can be traced back to the day a stranger decided to punch its writer and creator, Nick Pearce, in the face. This unprovoked attack led him, then a tech lawyer, to pen his first short story. From there, he began to put together the tale that would become this game, a thrilling time-loop mystery that was originally created within the world of 2011's fantasy epic The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim. When the mod was released in 2015, it racked up more than 3m downloads and netting Pearce an Australian Writers' Guild award.

Six years on, The Forgotten City has been rebuilt, transplanted from Skyrim's Nordic fantasy setting to ancient Rome, and expanded to a complete, albeit rather concise, game. After waking up on a riverbank in the present, you're catapulted back 2,000 years to a city cut off from the rest of Roman society. Its 23 residents ostensibly live in harmony: the community exists under the yoke of a curse, The Golden Rule, that means if any one citizen commits a sin, everybody meets a gruesome death. Someone is about to break this rule, and you are tasked with discovering the culprit before everyone pays the price.