Sometimes, I want to play a title where is just one massive chill out session. A nice story, some simple but engaging mechanics and just a nice, relaxing overall gameplay experience. Developer Frostwood Interactive and publisher Nejcraft offer up Forgotten Fields as a possible candidate to scratch that itch.

“Forgotten Fields is a game about yearning and nostalgia. Play as Sid – a struggling writer who travels back to his childhood home one last time before it’s sold off. Visit old friends, relive memories and play through sections of Sid’s book in this warm game about the passage of time.”

Forgotten Fields is a few years old, as it was released on PC back in 2021, but it has seen a console release just a few weeks back. As somebody who writes a fair bit himself, any game that features writing as a story narrative gets my attention right away. In Forgotten Fields, you play as Sid and Sid is struggling to come up with ideas for his next book. Invited back to his family home, Sid sets out on a journey crammed with memories and nostalgia.

What you get with Forgotten Fields is a modern point ‘n click adventure game with an interesting narrative hook. While you play as Sid, he’ll jot down ideas for his new book. The game then switches to you playing as the main character from that book and living out the ideas that Sid comes up with. Sid’s book soon becomes infused with ideas from his own life and the nostalgic journey that he is on. It really is a rather unique and intriguing set up… but everything else is awful.

Everything about Forgotten Fields feels broken and unfinished. The controls are janky, the camera atrocious and the overall gameplay is glitchy and full of bugs. So much so that I’ve not been able to get to the end credits. See, there’s a bit on a beach where you catch up with an old friend. That friend suggests that you go for a swim. The game then switches from its third-person view, to a first-person one… and this is where the game breaks for me. It doesn’t freeze because the waves of the sea are moving, but I can’t move in first person mode and I know it’s a major bug because my third-person self is displayed during this first-person section. Look, I even took a screenshot…

See up the top there? That’s third-person me being seen by me looking in first-person. It’s a bug and I can do nothing at this point, I can’t progress past this bit of the game because I can’t move. I’ve reloaded a previous save (several times) and it still does the same thing. I restarted the whole game, played back to this point and yep, it does the same thing. The game is broken. I decided to a little investigation and I looked at a handful of reviews of Forgotten Fields when it was originally released back in 2021. Pretty much all of them mention the same issues I have, that controls are janky, the camera atrocious and the overall gameplay is glitchy and full of bugs. It seems that the dev hasn’t fixed much (or anything) in four years for this console release. In fact, as far as I gather, this console release is worse than the PC version. There’s also this really annoying sound effect that plays every time a dialogue box appears, and they appear constantly.

Nope, stay away from this one. It may have a pretty interesting narrative, but everything else about Forgotten Fields plays like the game is still in it’s pre-alpha phase. I’m a great supporter of indie gaming and devs, and I’ve played hundreds of indies over the years. Forgotten Fields is one of the worst. It’s a broken mess.