Fort Solis

In marketing Fort Solis, the small developer Fallen Leaf has made much of the major actors they have managed to attach to the project. Roger Clark, known from Read Dead Redemption 2, plays the protagonist Jack Leary, who is in constant radio contact with Julia Brown's character Jessica Appleton, while the ubiquitous Troy Baker also has an important role as the (perhaps) mad scientist Wyatt Taylor. This makes sense, as the strong voice acting is allowed to shine through a low audio mix that lies like a thin atmospheric membrane over the unsettling and lonely surroundings of the abandoned Mars space station, Fort Solis, where most of the game takes place.

Fortunately, the talented actors have also been given a competent script to work with. The constant back-and-forth between Jack and the absent Jessica makes the lonely wandering through the sterile corridors in the first half of the game more bearable and acts as a mental light in the darkness. Also absent are the scientists and other staff that should populate the seemingly deserted mining station. Instead, they speak through audio files and video recordings as we have come to expect from games such as Dead Space and System Shock. These logs often become a disjointed mix of heavy exposition and uninteresting everyday observations , but here it all blends into an intriguing, atmospheric background noise that supports the central mystery.

Fort Solis was created during Covid-19, and the game's developers clearly have something to say about loneliness and how a digital substitute for human contact isn't always enough. Even the beautifully designed and graphically detailed environments revolve around this, like moons orbiting a planet. This is true on a small scale, with the realistic reflections on a greasy tablet illustrating how the station's inhabitants have clung to any form of contact or distraction, and it can be observed through interactable objects such as punching bags and Rubik's cubes that remind us how we sometimes use both our body and mind to overcome a feeling of isolation. Yes, there are rough edges here and there, and the environments don't quite have the level of detail that the newest AAA games spoil us with. But considering the size of the developer, the presentation is very, very impressive and certainly a big step up for this kind of story-heavy game. It's also superbly optimised and I didn't experience any glitches or bugs worth mentioning.

Whilst the developer has had a clear vision for the game's story and its environment, the same unfortunately cannot be said for the gameplay. In fact, it's hard to understand why Fort Solis needs to be a game at all. Where walking simulators like The Vanishing of Ethan Carter use gameplay mechanics to support the central narrative, and the many adventure games inspired by Telltale's The Walking Dead use interactivity to add intensity and an opportunity to influence the narrative, Fallen Leaf seems to have included gameplay more as a concession to the player.

The primary gameplay loop consists of painstakingly searching room after room for clues that will reveal what happened on the station. There are no puzzles and you never have to think about what you're using a given item for. Every once in a while, you're lucky enough to stumble across a keycard that unlocks more rooms in the station, and then you can wander through the same monotonous corridors in search of new objects to look at and touch, but rarely meaningfully interact with.

The problem is clearly illustrated when something dramatic actually happens, which is typically between the game's four acts, and more frequently towards the end of the game. One moment the game gives you a clunky, poorly explained quick-time event to deal with, and the next it simply wrestles the control away from you and leaves Jack (or another playable character) to fend for himself. If the developer had a plan for how the gameplay enhanced the experience, it's hiding just as well as that annoying little item you need for advancing to the next room and have to painstakingly search for.

Fort Solis takes about five hours to complete, but the whole thing could have been over much quicker if Jack hadn't been trudging along at such an infinitely slow pace. It certainly makes sense that a heavily equipped character isn't running and jumping about like another Super Mario. But unfortunately, the pace is so slow that you lose the desire to explore the station to find collectibles, audio files and the other items that support the game's universe. A slight jog could have really worked wonders and turned Fort Solis into a more enjoyable, manageable game.

As it stands, Fort Solis is an atmospheric experience with impressive graphics and a slow, but interesting central narrative. But as a game it falls short on many parameters, with low interactivity, shoddy quick time events and exploration that rarely feels rewarding. I can only imagine that the actual game parts were added mostly as an afterthought, and that's too bad, for what ultimately could have been pretty special just ends up being rather bland.