Reminder that Forgotten 23 has launched on Steam

• Announcements by Jack Allin
• Published:

Time-looping, sci-fi survival adventure available now to download for Windows PC

If at first you don't succeed, try try again. It's a good motto for anyone to persevere through trials, and especially applicable to Forgotten 23, the newly released time-looping sci-fi survival adventure from solo Polish developer Lucas S. Kowal and his Koval Games studio.

The game is named after a "remote space station over Proxima Centauri b," which is forced to broadcast a distress signal when its orbit begins decaying. By the time engineer Max Novak reaches the Forgotten, it is only "a matter of time until it crashes into the surface of the planet below." Twenty-three minutes, to be precise. Inexplicably, all eight members of the station have disappeared without a trace, leaving only wreckage and bloodstains behind, so Max is on his own to "repair critical systems, and stop an unseemly, unstoppable end." But as it turns out – spoiler alert – he can't.

Instead of dooming Max to oblivion, however, time surprisingly loops backward, giving him repeated chances to save the station (and himself) while learning more about the missing crew and the secrets of the mysterious Proxima Centauri b. Each time the reset happens, however, "the station changes, subtly at first, but enough to raise the question: is time repeating, or is reality itself unraveling?" In this place nothing is as it seems, so can you really "trust the sole survivor, the Luna AI controlling the space station?" The more questions are raised, the more players will discover that "in space, truth is subjective. And some answers are better left buried."

Forgotten 23 sees players wandering the darkened, dilapidated rooms and hallways of the space station via an overhead third-person perspective, controlled with either keyboard or gamepad. Inspired by the sci-fi works of Stanisław Lem, the game promises a "uniquely Polish take on the genre" that is "philosophical, unsettling, and full of unknowable forces." With a real-time limit of twenty-three minutes (per loop) making every second count, players must utilize computer consoles, scavenge the station for parts and craft tools from limited resources to confront its "shifting anomalies [and] glitches" whether by re-routing power, putting out fires, "debugging malfunctioning robots, sealing toxic air leaks, or repairing broken modules."

Along the way you'll piece together the ill-fated stories of those who were there before you from "corrupted data logs, personal belongings, and haunting environmental clues," gradually uncovering the mystery of what "may have driven them to madness, or worse." All the while, your only companion is Luna, who is "calm, efficient, and maybe not entirely honest. Is she protecting Max? Helping him? Or guiding him toward something much darker?"

The fate of the Forgotten awaits, and with no time to waste you can get started right away, as the game is available now on Steam for Windows PC .