Fort Solis Review

So what is ‘Fort Solis‘? On the surface the game is technically a walking simulator, however it’s much more than that!

To delve a little into the production of this game the developers ‘Fallen Leaf’ were inspired by films such as Duncan Jones ‘Moon’ for the isolated psychological themes that that film conveyed. They were also inspired by the film ‘1917’ by Sam Mendes for the one-shot take approach to telling a story in one continuous sequence.

‘Fallen Leaf’ wanted to tell a cinematic story in an immersive way where the player is fully immersed in the game’s world. To do this they have gone down the same style as ‘Quantic Dream’ games such as ‘Heavy Rain’ and ‘Detroit: Become Human’ where the player is essentially experiencing a playable film with the addition of quick time events and button prompts for actions.

So that is the essence of the game.

But what is ‘Fort Solis’ really about?

Well, it’s a bit of a mixture of thriller and mystery set on Mars.

The game is set a few decades in the future when earth has begun to colonize Mars. You play as Jack Leary an engineer for the Terra company voiced by the talented Roger Clark. The game opens up with Jack and his colleague Jessica Appleton (voiced by Julia Brown) fixing up the outer hull of Prospect One, a Mars drilling platform.

All seems standard procedure with back-and-forth banter between Jack & Jessica as we learn that this is Jack’s last shift before his vacation leave.

Then all of a sudden an alert comes through from the nearby research facility ‘Fort Solis‘. Jack decides to respond to the routine alarm thinking it is nothing more than a power failure.

It’s here where we see the inspiration from ‘1917’ come into play as the entire sequence of you making your way down from Prospect One to your LTV (Mars Rover) vehicle then onto ‘Fort Solis‘ is all played out seamlessly from gameplay to cutscene without any cuts or break in the action on screen.

There’s a lovely sequence here where the gameplay section stops as you enter into the LTV and it blends seamlessly into a cutscene as you drive off. The camera pulls back to show a rear view of the LTV driving to ‘Fort Solis as the opening credits play. Once the title sequence ends the camera slowly swoops back towards the LTV then passes through the glass of the driver-side window to show the interior and Jack driving. Jack then attempts to hail ‘Fort Solis’ but gets no answer. He then parks up, puts his helmet on and hops out as the game goes back into playable movement again.

One entire sequence that lets you gauge the distance from Prospect One to ‘Fort Solis‘ all while keeping you immersed the entire time.

And that is the beauty of this game. People might complain saying it’s boring and it’s ‘just a walking simulator’ but it’s not. It’s a cinematic experience like no other. It takes formulas that have proven to work in cinema and adapts them to the video game world. It’s a testament to experimental game design and a unique way to tell a story while not breaking the immersion.

Jumping back in, you start to find that things aren’t all that they seem to be at ‘Fort Solis‘ and that this may be more than just a power outage. A full lockdown in effect, an entire research facility with all its staff missing? What’s going on? It’s up to you to find out. And how do you do that if there are no NPCs to talk to?

Well, this is where the immersion factor swings back in again.

Now some people might find reading emails and listening to audio logs in games boring. I admit I used to skim right over things like this in the past. But ‘Fort Solis‘ has changed that for me. You start to piece together what happened here by listening, watching and reading audio logs, video diaries and emails from the staff that worked there.

I love this approach as it’s a great storytelling technique in allowing the player to learn about these characters gradually while maintaining intrigue and mystery.

Now the third main character of this game is Wyatt Taylor, the Chief medical officer for ‘Fort Solis‘ who is played by the Legend that is Troy Baker. Wyatt serves as the antagonist in the game, but not in the conventional sense. You learn through logs (email, video and audio) why Wyatt got to this point and the motivations behind his actions.

But why so ‘Coy, Roy’ about the story?

Well, I’d rather leave what happens in the story for you to find out as it’s a rather good one that I do not want to spoil. However, all I can say is that events start to spiral out of control and what seemed to be a quiet last shift before Jack’s vacation leave turns into a very, very long night.

So let’s look at the gameplay, shall we?

Like I said before the game plays out very similar to games like ‘Detroit’ and ‘Heavy Rain’ by ‘Quantic Dream’. You have prompts appear on the screen to show what button you need to press in order to perform an action. An example of this is when Jack has to scale a cliff face and you have to hold down both L1 and R1 buttons while holding up the left thumb stick to begin the climb.

You also have quick-time events where you have to press certain buttons quickly in order to succeed in that event. Whether you successfully hit that button prompt or not will show a different outcome to that certain event. An example of this is when Jack has to rope swing from the top of the cliff to the nearby platform. Successfully hit the button prompt and you will get an animation of Jack reaching the platform safely. Miss time the prompt like I did and you will get a ‘crap your pants’ moment of thinking you fell to your sudden death before grabbing onto the ladder below.

The outcome between a successful prompt and an unsuccessful prompt differs slightly in the actual animation, but it doesn’t affect the overall story.

Another addition to the game is the ‘Multi Tool’ which each character has strapped to their wrist. From here you can access the map, listen, watch and read logs and emails, but also gain access to systems around ‘Fort Solis‘.

Now the game plays in two halves, allowing you to play as both Jack and Jessica (although I won’t say why you change due to spoilers). While the gameplay between them both is nearly identical there are some subtle differences between them both that help bring out their characters. One key example of this is the movement of Jessica as when she turns it feels more responsive than Jack who turns much more slowly. Jessica is much younger than Jack and more agile, so this is a nice subtle touch to show the differences in character.

One gripe that I did have at the beginning of the game was that neither character could run. I did start to see this as a design choice by the developers to reflect the characters psychological state in the game though. To Jack and Jessica they have arrived at ‘Fort Solis‘ with no knowledge of what is really going on. They are both calm as they believe it to be nothing more than a power outage. So running wouldn’t seem right here for someone who is calm.

Same again when things begin to escalate. It’s that whole fight or flight thing, we begin to slow down when we’re tense rather than speed up. That being said though there is a lot of exploring in this game where you go back and forth between locations. So while I can understand the reasoning behind it, it would have been nice to include a simple run feature.

Another aspect that made this game stand out was that the locations of ‘Fort Solis‘ both looked and felt believable. I have never played a game where the setting feels so lived in. Each room has a story to tell. You can see that this used to be a thriving research station and now it feels trapped in time. It really goes into the immersion and makes the location of ‘Fort Solis‘ feel like another character in the game.

Another subtle touch is that the game remembers the actions that you performed as Jack and carries that over to when Jessica is exploring the facility.

Had a beer and left the empty bottle on a table in the Atrium? Jessica will notice this and comment on it.

Leave the protective shutters for the windows down whilst playing as Jack? They’ll still be down when playing as Jessica. It’s a subtle thing that’s a nice payoff to show that this is all going on at the same time and shows the reality of it all.

Finally, you can opt for two different methods of moving from location to location at ‘Fort Solis‘. You can either go from the Atrium to the other buildings connected by the main stairwell and underground tunnels or you can move from building to building on the surface.

Either method comes at its own expense. If you choose to go underground you will be met with tense and dark claustrophobic tunnels with only your helmet light to guide you. If you decide to traverse the Martian surface, you will have to contend with the escalating dust storm that is engulfing ‘Fort Solis‘. A tense wade through the dark, or a reprieve on the surface while battling strong winds? The choice is up to you.

Graphics wise this game is stunning. To get the cinematic experience that they wanted ‘Fallen Leaf used Unreal Engine 5 and performance motion capture to get quite possibly the most realistic performances and facial animations I’ve ever seen in a game.

While the design, lighting and overall graphical look of ‘Fort Solis‘ is almost photo-realistic, I really need to point out how good these character models look. The performance motion capture has really brought all the characters to life. The movement of how they walk to how they move their bodies around is life-like.

But it’s the facial animations that really bring that uncanny valley feeling to the game. Each movement of the eyes, to the micro-expressions of the eyebrows and cheek muscles is rendered perfectly. The mouth movements are also seamless and sync perfectly to the voice. It’s brilliant, and while Wyatt Taylor uses a different facial model to his actor Troy Baker (whereas Jack and Jessica use their actors’ facial models) his face is truly brought to life using Baker’s own facial capture for the movement.

I really like that they didn’t use his face and instead used model Craig Barrett for Wyatt’s face as it made me forget that it was Troy Baker and drew me into this unique character with life-like facial movements.

Music and sound wise this game does well in creating that air of tension in this massive space. Footsteps resonate, you can hear particles of dust hitting your suit outside in the storm, each part of your suit makes a noise as it moves while you walk. It’s just like how you would hear things in real life. There’s a bit in the closing section of the game where you’re in this wide open space (I won’t say where) and you try to open an airlock door and the automated voice will tell you you can’t because the lockdown is in effect.

The silence of this wide open space then erupts with the echo of the automated voice and you will suddenly feel tense that you have given away the fact you are now here and maybe not alone…

The music does a great job of building this world and drawing you into the tension of the game. It never has any point where it’s really in your face, it’s just subtly in the background underscoring the story.

The cherry on the top for ‘Fort Solis‘ though has to be the acting by the 3 main leads. Roger Clark and Julia Brown have a great chemistry between them which is reflected in the back-and-forth banter you have between each other on the Comms throughout the game. Jessica is the constant companion at Jack’s side as he explores ‘Fort Solis‘, and while not with him at first she is in constant communication with him via radio.

The comradery between them is performed beautifully with solid performances from both. However it’s Troy Baker’s performance as Wyatt Taylor that leaves a lasting impression on your mind after completing ‘Fort Solis‘. This is quite possibly his best performance ever! He captures the conflicted and aggravated nature of Wyatt perfectly to give a compelling and at times terrifying performance. Troy Baker’s performance as Wyatt Taylor would definitely be my pick for best video game performance at the game awards.

Overall ‘Fort Solis’ is an incredibly immersive cinematic experience that dares to push the boundaries in ways that some would not take kindly to, while others will see it for what it truly is trying to achieve. While it is short, clocking in at just over 5 hours, it is an experience that will leave a lasting impression on your mind.

There is also a replay value to it with tons of collectable flags, banners, emails, video logs and audio logs for you to find and also an alternate ending to experience.

To quote Roger Clark during the unveiling of the launch trailer during Gamescom 2023 “10 people, 2 years, 0 delays” ‘Fallen Leaf’ (a very small team of 10 developers) have managed to achieve a AAA quality game better than some big name studios out there. Now if that doesn’t say something about this game then I don’t know what will.

Yes, there are some negative criticisms out there claiming the game is too short and the story is bland, but I want you to remember that they are just opinions, just like this review you have just read. Just like music and Film, video games are subjective.

It’s down to you to make the ultimate choice of whether or not to play something. If you’re the type of person that loves minute-to-minute action and scares then this game is not for you. But if you like being immersed in a fully lived world and a single-player cinematic story that pushes the boundaries both in its approach to storytelling and visually, then this game is certainly for you. You will really enjoy it.

I certainly did. And I really hope that ‘Fallen Leaf’ makes a follow-up or at least a game set within the same world as ‘Fort Solis‘ as they’ve created something truly special here. Fort Solis gets a 9/10

Fort Solis Trailer

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Fort Solis is available on PC and PlayStation 5.