Summary
RememberFort Solis? The sci-fi horror game, starring two of the gaming industry’s most famous actors that flopped so hard on its August release that it was quickly eclipsed by the tens of better games that came out in 2023? I’d almost entirely forgotten that it came out, largely because of its lacklustre launch and the fact that the far more interesting and consumingBaldur’s Gate 3had launched earlier that same month. It likely would have slipped into the annals of history, never to be thought of again, if not for the fact that Fallen Leaf has just announced that the game will be adapted into a movie… I think.
To be honest, it’s not quite clear what exactly Fort Solis is being turned into. The press release from the Studios Extraordinaires, the production house taking on the adaptation, says only that “fans and newcomers alike can anticipate an entirely fresh encounter with the enigmatic Red Planet” and that “The signing of this film and TV production deal with Studios Extraordinaires marks a significant milestone in the evolution of the Fort Solis IP”. It looks like it could be either TV or a film, but the game would lend itself well to both – it would be better as something watchable than it was as a game, probably.
I say this because Fort Solis was praised by critics for its excellent acting and cinematic beauty, while roundly criticised for its use of mechanics, stifling linearity, and lacklustre storytelling. Our own Joe Parlock called it a “waste of time” and “a total slog”in his review, but admitted that the cast and characters all had a “magnetism and chemistry that helps carry the first few hours”. I also particularly enjoyedPolygon’s reviewof the game from Tauriq Moosa, which stated that “If Fort Solis had been a 4K YouTube video instead of a game, I imagine the experience would not have differed much. And maybe it should have just been a video. At least I could have fast-forwarded through the tedious walking sections that comprise most of the game.”
And that’s my point exactly – it should have just been a video. After all, it was mostly the gameplay that players found severely lacking, though many did criticise the game’s predictable plot as well. Pluck the gameplay out of what was essentially a badly designed walking simulator, focus on the strength of the cast and the beautiful visuals, and rewrite the story to be less predictable, and you could get a half-decent movie.
We can hope that this won’t be a straight adaptation and that the production house in charge will be able to make something worth watching out of this mediocre game, but it’s hard to say if that will be the case. According to the press release, Studios Extraordinaires “specializes in crafting high-end action, horror, and science-fiction films inspired by original stories and extraordinary games”, but the studio hasn’t actually released anything concrete yet, so there’s no way to set our expectations. Mine aren’t high, for the record – putting my trust in an unknown studio to make a half-baked game into a good movie is a touch too far for me – but Fort Solis had an interesting premise, at the very least. All we can do is wait and see if it’ll be any good, but I doubt it could be much worse than the game.
