The mod took three years to develop – some 1700 hours of dedication – and it paid off in its popularity and accolades, but Pearce knew he could take it further: “There are things about the mod that I don’t especially like. Over the years, that mod has racked up more than three million downloads and won an Australian Writers’ Guild Award back in 2016. Back in 2015, before Pearce and his tiny team of collaborators began work on the game, he released a Skyrim mod of the same name.
The sprawling time-loop mystery of The Forgotten City is set in Ancient Rome, but its story began long before its current incarnation. “There are plenty of games that cater to that, but that’s not what we’re doing.” That being said, Pearce isn’t dismissive of game design that meticulously guides the player.
“What I want to do is to encourage and challenge people to think for themselves and reward them for thinking for themselves.” “I don’t want to tell people what to think,” said game creator and Modern Storyteller founder Nick Pearce. Time-travel murder mystery The Forgotten City is not so heavy-handed. Many video games subject players to the tyranny of waypoints and cleverly masked pathways guiding them from one objective to the next.
