Fort Solis

Fort Solis is described by Fallen Leaf as a psychological thriller, while video game publications referred to it as a horror and adventure game. Played from a third-person perspective, it is presented without camera cuts or loading screens. The player controls engineer Jack Leary, with two segments featuring his colleague, Jessica Appleton, and traverses the titular Martian station where an emergency alert has been activated. The station is divided into nine interconnected sections, consisting of both surface structures and underground levels connected by tunnels; the player can use a rover to traverse the surface.

During exploration, the player finds key cards to open new sections, solves puzzles, and uncovers various logs, expanding the information about the game world. The player uses a handheld device to interact with the environment, such as picking locks or hacking doors. The game also features quick time events at specific points in the story.

As maintenance technicians Jack Leary (Roger Clark) and Jessica Appleton (Julia Brown) prepare for an oncoming storm at the Martian colony, Fort Minor, they receive an emergency alert from a nearby mining station, Fort Solis. Traveling to investigate, Leary finds the station on lockdown with no sign of the crew. His exploration is initially limited by the lockdown and his lack of security credentials. As he ventures further into the station, he encounters bloodstains and signs suggesting he is not alone.

Eventually, Leary discovers the corpses of several Fort Solis crew members, each bearing stab wounds. At the maintenance bay, where Leary attempts to restart the power generators, he is attacked by Wyatt Taylor (Troy Baker), Fort Solis's medical officer. Appleton, who has maintained radio contact with Leary, travels to Fort Solis. Upon arrival, she encounters Taylor but escapes his attack and begins searching for Leary.

Fort Solis was conceived in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Game director James Tinsdale, inspired by his experience watching streaming television during that time, envisioned adapting this cinematic narrative style into a video game format. Tinsdale, formerly of Asobo Studio, initiated the project with art director Mark Cushley, who had previously worked at Evolution Studios and Traveller's Tales. They were later joined by senior technical animator Matt Lake and producer Max Barton.

After six months of development, the team secured investment, allowing their studio, Fallen Leaf, to expand to a staff of ten across Liverpool and Warsaw. This expansion facilitated the outsourcing of certain development aspects to Black Drakkar Games, a Warsaw-based studio that added ten more staff members to the project. In 2023, they received funding through Epic Games' MegaGrant initiative.

Fort Solis received "mixed or average" reviews from critics, according to review aggregator Metacritic, and 35% of critics recommended the game, according to OpenCritic. It was praised for cast performances, visuals, and sound design; reviewers had mixed responses to the narrative and criticized the gameplay. Mark Delaney of GameSpot wrote that the game's strengths generally outweighed its weaknesses. Josh West of GamesRadar+ felt that it was an ambitious debut project, albeit lacking in individuality.

Tauriq Moosa of Polygon compared playing Fort Solis to watching a 4K video on YouTube due to its limited interactivity. Joe Parlock of TheGamer called it "all presentation and no substance," adding that "it's insulting how utterly mediocre it is when its cast and setting had so much promise." John Bales of PC Gamer was also disappointed, writing that "if Fort Solis really was a Netflix series, it wouldn't get a second season."