Sometimes there are stories behind the development of some video games that are worth telling because of how interesting they are or because of all the secrets they hide behind. With The Forgotten City we have one of the best examples.
Nick Pearce He is the main person behind all this, who made the brave decision to abandon his career as a lawyer to create a mod for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, which later became an independent video game. A process that presented too many difficulties until finally the game was released on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch and PC in 2021.
A lawyer who became interested in video game development
To know the origins of this title we have to go back many years, specifically to 2011, when Nick Pearce He practiced law from a technology company in Melbourne, Australia. Like many of us, in his little free time he spent playing video games and he also loved to write novels.
One of his favorite games was Fallout: New Vegas and by playing he found the New Vegas Bounties modcreated by user Someguy2000, which left such an impact on him that it served as inspiration. He himself admitted that it was a revelation:
It was a revelation that a mod could be as good or better than official DLC, and a great way to tell a top-notch story.
At that time The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim It was already on sale, but it wasn't until a year later when Bethesda enabled the mod creation kitso that users could show off their ingenuity. That's when Pierce, after seeing what happened with the mod, Fallout: New Vegasbelieved that he could not be less.
From there his goal became to create a mod for Skyrimbut not having much idea about video game development he had no choice but to learn on his own by studying and watching tutorials. So it happened that he spent the next three years alternating his work as a lawyer and his hobby of creating the perfect modbecause I wasn't willing to offer just any experience.
His ambition was so great that the mod ended up with a script composed of 35,000 words, with dubbed dialogues and even its own soundtrack. The result was so good that in 2015 He was awarded the Australian Writer's Guild Award for his brilliant work, which in turn allowed him to make history because never before had a mod been the winner of such an award.
Time to take the mod even further
The popularity of this mod grew so much that a year later, in 2016, the League of Geeks development team, creators of Armellothey contacted Pearce to encourage him to turn the mod into a standalone video gameHowever, not everyone was in favour of it, such as one of his friends who thought he was wasting his time:
He told me that every waking minute of my life should be devoted to my career as a lawyer. That was his way of telling me to quit this game development nonsense, because I wasn't going to get anywhere like that.
However, far from agreeing with his friend, this statement made something click in his head and he decided that it was time to leave his career as a lawyer to focus entirely on the development of The Forgotten CityHe was aware, however, that it was a huge risk, because abandoning his career could mean that no one would want to hire him again if he spent too much time away from the courts.
With the idea in mind to go all out, he used the money he had saved to hire programmer Alex Goss (Earthlight) to help him with this task and also to the artist John Eye (Hand of Fate 2). Also, since I didn't want to make a copy of Skyrimchose to modify the setting and leave aside its touch of fantasy to bet on something more related to Ancient Rome.
In order not to confuse things by introducing historical elements that were not appropriate for the time, Pierce contacted Dr. Philip Matuszak of Cambridge University, who was also a fan of Guild Warsand also with Dr. Sophie, to give her a hand with this section. All this in order to make it as realistic as possible.
In the end, between these modifications, the design of the characters, their stories, the settings, etc., the plot was expanded so much that went from 35,000 to 80,000 words. Likewise, such was his passion for making an outstanding game that he wanted to improve the graphical quality compared to that of Skyrimbut his budget did not allow him to hire a decent animator.
From working 80 hours a week to being praised by everyone
Nick Pierce was developing The Forgotten City for four and a half years, sometimes working an average of about 80 hours a weekIt was too risky a project, for which he had left his previous life behind, and he also wanted to avoid the crunch in his team, hence why he went to such lengths weekly to get the game going.
In the end it is said that he who pursues it achieves it, because in 2021 The moment of truth has arrived. Their team, Modern Storyteller, has finally finished developing The Forgotten City and posted it on all platforms. Even so, Pierce was convinced that the reviews would not be very favorable and the average score would not go beyond 60 or 70.
To his surprise, his reception was spectacular, to the point that on Metacritic it has an average score of 84 on PC, 85 on PS5, 86 on Xbox Series X/S, 88 on Xbox One and 90 on Nintendo Switch. In addition, on Steam it boasts more than 7,000 user reviews, of which 96% are positive.
As if that weren't enough, it won awards such as the Australian Game Developers Award for its plot, at the Game Awards that year it was one of the nominees in the category of best indie release and it was also nominated for the DICE Awards and the BAFTAs of 2022. So yes, you could say that Nick Pierce's decision was very risky, but without a doubt the move paid off.
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