I saw the reveal for Fort Solis. It looked so damn good on the new Unreal Engine 5. The graphics looked good, the cinematics, the animations... it just looked out of this world, but sadly... at the end of the day... I feel as if we got sold down the river with Fort Solis.

Below I will explain my reasoning behind that statement, but first a quick disclaimer. oh an also, I usually do a pro's and con's list but for this review, I am going to keep it brief with just my opinion on what went wrong and what is wrong with Fort Solis.

This review is MY opinion, MY own personal experience and MY thoughts. I am brutally honest when it comes to reviewing games. If you do not like my opinion, my time or respect my personal experience, please move on.

So to start off, the story. It has a start, middle and end like all games but sadly... realistically they only worked on the END of the story in my opinion. It's classed as a "thriller"... I am sorry but this is heavily mislabelled in my opinion. The start of the story is so slow, boring and tedious about a man finding locked doors in a space station on mars. Then, the entire middle part of the game is you walking around constantly picking up collectables, watching boring video's, reading logs and then the better part of the game comes at the last what... 30-40 minutes.

If I remember correctly, they teased the game as something more. Something "better looking" than what we actually got given and, I am more than positive, there was lot's of drama and negative feedback around the game when it launched. I can see why now.

You want atmosphere, suspense, thriller? You want that buildup? Well, Fort Solis lacks all of that. Also, if you miss a collectable, you have to replay the ENTIRE game from start to finish. This to me, is disgraceful for completionists as all that comes to my mind is this - "Let's make it so there are over 140 collectables and if the player miss's one, they have to replay the entire game again adding to more playtime on our game to boost our numbers" - developer.

Well, the space station looks amazing. It has realistic textures and lighting and it actually looks lived in which in my opinion, lot's of other game's could take a hint from this one there. Not only that, all the people you see have great animations to them. Compare it to a lot of new games... Fort Solis actually does this incredibly well.

After all is said and done, I cannot bring myself to recommend a 2.9 hour boring walking simulator that is classed as a thriller with no suspense or threat whatsoever and it's overpriced at £21 (goes on sale all the time because it's not very good).

Trust me, save your money. The Dark Pictures Anthology does this better for example. If you can get it on sale, by all means, this game might be your cuppa tea but it's not mine.

I reckon, if they had some sort of monster, or outbreak, or you had to go up against the dangers of mars... or heck, put way more work into exploration or added some sort of stealth (for some other mechanic) then maybe the game would be better. Hey, just spitballing out of frustration. I really hope I didn't pay £21 for this...

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Fort Solis is a very nice narrative experience with a truly immersive atmosphere. The story, with a few well-timed twists, keeps you engaged from start to finish. The investigation is compelling and encourages thorough exploration of the Martian base. Voice acting is top-notch, with strong performances throughout. A short but unforgettable adventure.

I played this entirely in VR using the UEVR mod.
This game is exceptionally demanding using synchronised sequential mode. Even on a 4090 I needed to use low settings + DLSS and set the tangent multiplier to 0.75 horizontal, and 0.5 vertical in the oculus debug tool (I actually like this cinematic widescreen VR experience for 3rd person games that this reduced FOV creates).
At times the game almost felt like being inside a big budget movie, truly stunning in terms of atmosphere and detail. To be inside an environment with this level of lighting, exceptionally high quality models and animation immersed me to a level almost no other game ever has and that is in spite of the game itself.
There is no real gameplay here, just slowly walking around reading logs and collecting "keys" to progress to the next section and several QTE that cannot be failed. It all seems like a missed opportunity. Why go to all this effort just to tell a bland story. Why make a game devoid of gameplay rather than just make a cgi movie .....