Fort Solis

Fort Solis understands what it takes to create a Hollywood style sci-fi movie. A well-written, gripping story, performed by a cast of talented actors who battle their way through thick atmospheres and tense conversations. However, the dedication to delivering a cinematic experience seems to have left little room for gameplay. Mars is visually stellar, immersive and begging to be explored, yet the slow movement of characters can become quite frustrating at times, making it difficult to want to play Fort Solis in one sitting. In spite of the pacing issue, the rest of the experience is enjoyable, capturing the essence of isolation and existential dread which comes with a deserted space station.

Fort Solis is a thrilling narrative adventure. From start to finish, the tension is there, as is the desire to discover the truth about what's going on in the complex established on Mars. The characters make the journey even more compelling, thanks to the outstanding performances of the actors who play their roles. Unfortunately, the title concludes far too quickly and without ever satisfying our thirst for knowledge. The main plot only skims over the reasons for the tragedy, and it will take a great deal of willpower and dedication to try and understand the mysteries of Fort Solis. A bold choice, but one that's sure to divide.

Fort Solis offers a well-executed and enjoyable experience with impressive production values. While opinions on its storyline and resolutions may vary, the game encourages individual interpretation and leaves room for personal conclusions.

While it marvelously blows up during the final moments of its descent, Fort Solis is a mostly successful voyage. Puzzling together what happened at the station is an engaging exercise that incentivizes players to inspect every computer and voice recorder in order to shine light on its dark mysteries. Its narrative doesn’t seem to branch much or push forward in any new directions, yet it achieves its modest goals rather well. Fort Solis was misused as a facility by its staff, but Fallen Leaf and Black Drakkar have utilized it well to tell one effective sci-fi thriller.

Fort Solis is a narrative experience that we found truly fascinating, characterized by a very competent direction, by very solid interpretations and by a technical sector in Unreal Engine 5 that surprises for the quality it is able to express, although in terms of performance i results leave much to be desired. The adventure proceeds at a slow pace, although it ends quite quickly (perhaps a single session will be enough to get to the end), and therefore you may not even notice the frame rate drops, while the limits of such an essential gameplay will appear very clear to you whether it is intentional or not.

Through fiction, I've traveled to one space station or another more times than I can count across many years and many forms of media. It's a setting I always enjoy--as an opening at least--and from there, stories may or may not keep me invested depending on what they do with that foundation. Fort Solis places a small but intriguing cast in its off-Earth saga in ways that can be familiar, but it justifies its addition to the subgenre with its own fun twists and philosophical arguments.

While far from perfect, Fort Solis still delivers an intriguing story with just a couple of well-delivered characters to really sell the final product. While they make sense, some creative decisions negatively impact the game as a whole. Still, sci-fi fans will have a great time with Fort Solis, even if it takes a bit to get going.

It feels strange to put gameplay at the bottom of the list for any video game, but Fort Solis clearly made performance and visuals a priority. With a cast consisting of two video game A-listers, the game showcases what a difference hiring talented people can have on the impact of a story. Disappointing conclusion aside, the visuals, tone, and the acting are strong enough to satisfy some people. However, the gameplay is rarely fun and occasionally frustrating, even if the mood is tense and the desire to see more is compelling. Fort Solis is a hard game to recommend for a mass audience, but there is a specific subset of gamers who this game will really resonate with.

Fallen Leaf and Black Drakkar Games have done an exceptional job conjuring up a slow-burn, suspenseful narrative thriller, largely in part due to the impressive visuals and big-name voice cast. You can easily finish Fort Solis in one sitting if you lose track of time, much like a movie, but the high price tag and painfully slow walking speed make me hesitant to recommend it to everyone. But hey, if you’re into high-quality walking simulators, then this might be the next game for you.

Fort Solis is an immensely beautiful game from top to bottom, with outstanding performances from the whole cast. However, it doesn’t completely deliver on the thrills, nor in the story and for a title not entirely rich in gameplay, the other elements don’t shine as brightly as a result.

Fort Solis is a conundrum, one I think I’m happy to have played just for the sake of experiencing a new take on the genre. The slow pace of the game outside its moderately engaging action scenes and snappy dialog can kill narrative momentum. The limited and rote gameplay mechanics are only minor breaks in the plodding walk speed of the main character. The technical excellence and masterful voice acting truly give Fort Solis a glimmer of promise in an otherwise conflicted game. Undoubtedly there is an audience for these pieces of entertainment but those who find themselves entertained by this particular approach may indeed be rare.

Fort Solis is a moderately successful first effort from Fallen Leaf. It scores points for atmosphere and good voice work, but suffers from clashing tonality. Tension is often severed before it takes hold, and the experience wraps up before exploring threads sufficiently. I understand why the scope is limited mostly to the critical path, but there were numerous threads along the way I wanted desperately to be able to tug at. Fort Solis isn’t exactly blazing any new trails, but there’s an entertaining few hours to be had here for fans of narrative adventures.

More a movie than a game, Fort Solis surprises with top-notch acting and creates a pretty decent atmosphere, but doesn’t offer any real challenge. It focuses on exploration but the protagonist’s sluggish movement effectively discourages it. This walking simulator will either captivate you enough to finish the story in one sitting or bore you in the first fifteen minutes.

Fort Solis is an interactive experience that would've worked better on rails thanks to it's awful map and UI. With no enemies, consequences for failing and apparently no way to lose the "game" or die. It's a 4 hour story with no replay value floating helplessly in a space full of truly stellar games released only in 2023.

Fort Solis is a pleasant, intimate sci-fi horror, but it could have been more. And that's the problem with the game. Everything here is good, but not enough. The story could have been better fleshed out, the game could have been longer, the gameplay could have been more variable. Only the atmosphere works well here.

I am a fan of interactive dramas, but Fort Solis proved to be a hard sell even for me. Despite its potential, the game just feels empty and despite the effort of Troy Baker and his colleagues it fails to create an emotional connection with the players. It is not even a popcorn movie you might enjoy when you are terribly bored. It is an experience that does not look bad but does not really offer anything to make it worthy of your time.

Fort Solis offers a cinematic experience that unfortunately creaks due to a writing without particular flashes. Exploring the space station in search of recordings and documents that shed light on the events of the story proves to be not very exciting. However, the developers of Fallen Leaf have built an admirable graphic framework in Unreal Engine 5, with richly detailed scenarios and realistic lighting (there is no shortage of frame rate fluctuations). To counterbalance, at least in part, the uncertainties of the narrative we find the excellent interpretations of Troy Baker, Roger Clark and Julia Brown, who make every exchange plausible with a variety of expressions worthy of much larger productions than this first work, which in any case should have dared a little more.

Although it isn’t a bad walking simulator, the lack of ambition prevents it from being something bigger and more memorable.

Fort Solis appears to have been created with a sole purpose: to be a showcase for UE5. It achieves this with excellence, but as an entertainment product or video game, it is incomplete.

Great performances and some good writing, but never tops the opening scare of how much money it’s asking for four hours of frustratingly limited activity. [Issue#32, p.89]

In the end, Fort Solis feels more like a project that stumbled its way through development rather than one that confidently defined its purpose. It tries to be both a video game and an interactive work, but doesn't quite shine in either category.

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.

Fort Solis starts out promising, with an eerie and mysterious narrative that just seems to get everything right. From environmental details to pacing, this opening act genuinely had us thinking we had a Firewatch or Everybody’s Gone To Rapture on our hands. However, as the game begins to expand, the pacing tanks, the story fumbles its way across the finish line, and the gameplay experience makes us want to throw our DualSense off the wall. There are a number of ways in which we should be impressed by the game — it’s made by a 10 person team after all — but in the end Fort Solis is an experience as dusty as the red planet itself.

A sci-fi thriller too cryptic with its story and with very little substance on the gameplay side, for an unfortunately unsatisfactory result.

Fort Solis starts strong but quickly struggles to circumvent its shortcomings. Despite the strong visual identity and drive towards absolute immersion, this narrative-adventure ultimately suffers due to its glacial movement and finicky controls. There's promise in the concept, but a lack of refinement is palpable in the execution.