Also on: PC
Publisher: Dear Villagers/Plug In Digital
Developer: Fallen Leaf/Black Drakkar Games
Medium: Digital
Players: 1
Online: No
ESRB: M
Itโs been a long time since I hated a game as much as I hate Fort Solis. From top to bottom, there literally wasnโt a single thing about the game I liked. Iโm sure Iโve played games that are more poorly made than Fort Solis, but for sheer dislike, I canโt think of many games that come close.
Where to begin? I could talk about the fact itโs a thriller with virtually no moments of tension. I could talk about the fact itโs a walking simulator that artificially extends the length of the game by making you walk at a snailโs pace. I could talk about the fact itโs a story-focused adventure where thereโs barely any story to speak of. There are so many ways in which Fort Solis sucks, itโs hard to know where to start.
Letโs start with the walking simulator aspect, because itโs probably the biggest part of why I loathed Fort Solis so much. Right from the get-go, youโre walking across the surface of an alien planet during some kind of storm, and every step feels like youโre pushing against heavy winds and gravity. Then you get inside the eponymous building, and it still feels like youโre pushing against heavy winds and gravity, with the added bonus that you get stuck if the slightest obstacle is in your way. On top of that, if you donโt approach a turn from the correct angle, you turn around (very slowly, of course) on the spot until youโre able to go wherever it is you want to go.
To make matters worse, Fort Solisโ world is mostly static. You can barely interact with anything, and you certainly canโt move anything. Is there a box blocking an entrance? No use trying to squeeze by, itโs a dead end. Trolley blocking your way? Same deal, no go. Time and again, the heroes of Fort Solis find themselves thwarted by the fact they have no mobility and zero problem-solving skills.
This would be annoying on its own, but itโs made worse by the fact that youโre stuck with useless, barely decipherable maps that are a pain to read. Youโre forced to view them on a tiny display on your wrist, and your options are either zooming so far out you canโt see where you are or where you need to go, or zooming so far in that you can see exactly where you are, but nothing around you. To further complicate matters, Fort Solis has multiple levels, so youโll often need to scroll through them just to figure out how to get from one place to another. Given that beacons and full-screen maps have been a thing for a very long time, and the game takes place in a future where theyโve evidently figured out some pretty advanced technology, youโd think none of this would present issues for Fort Solis, but, evidently, youโd be wrong.
This slow-moving lack of urgency is especially bad when you consider that Fort Solis is, nominally, a thriller. Two space engineers are sent to the titular space outpost to investigate a distress signal, and when they arrive they findโฆsomething bad? Itโs never fully explained, and even after watching the end credits roll I still didnโt fully understand (or care, by that point) what the big mystery was. Nonetheless, they find a few dead bodies, and realize someone or something has gone on a killing spree. Itโs a solid set-up, and, to Fort Solisโ credit, even if โabandoned space facilityโ is kind of a clichรฉ, itโs creepy enough that theyโre able to make it seem like the game is going to be scary fun.
Except itโs completely undone by the fact neither of the two heroes โ Jack and Jessica โ show even the slightest bit of urgency or concern. No matter what theyโre doing, they move at a crawl, even when one of them is literally rushing to save the otherโs life. The only time either of the characters run is during a cutscene, and you know youโre able to control the character again when theyโre back to strolling along the abandoned hallways of the space station where a serial killer is lurking somewhere.
Not even their dialogue reflects the seriousness of their situation. The first half of the game, when youโre controlling Jack and talking to Jessica, is basically just a stream of banter. Even when Jack discovers a dead body, moments later theyโre back to cracking jokes with each other over their communications link. Likewise, in the second half (minor spoiler ahead), after Jack gets knocked out and you play from Jessicaโs perspective, sheโll go from getting threatened by the killer to making inane comments about her surroundings. While both voice actors, Roger Clark and Julia Brown, try their best to give their respective characters personalities, they can only work with the script theyโve been given, and the plain fact is the script is terrible.
The total lack of action and suspense also serves to undercut the moments where things do happen. Every so often Fort Solis features Quick Time Events, except theyโre completely random occurrences, so itโs easy to get caught off guard and miss them completely โ though, at the same time, it doesnโt seem like they matter all that much to the story, so it feels like they were just thrown in for the sake of having QTEs. The same goes for the story: thereโs so much useless exposition and so many stretches of nothing happening that itโs not hard to zone out and miss whatโs going on. Itโs entirely possible I missed some major plot points because my mind was wandering while I meandered from one end of the station to the other, because it was such a slog going from Point A to Point B every single time.
And, without getting into spoilers, I have to say that the ending was one of the dumbest things Iโve ever seen. Iโd say that it soured me on the rest of the experience, but the reality is that I was done with Fort Solis long, long before I finished it โ which is an especially bad sign when you consider that you can finish it in about three hours.
Honestly, even after writing all these words about Fort Solis, I still feel like Iโve only brushed the surface of why itโs such a terrible game. It may look nice, but thereโs literally nothing of value here. Itโs a waste of time, money, and hard drive space, and youโre better off forgetting its existence.
Dear Villagers/Plug In Digital provided us with a Fort Solis PS5 code for review purposes.