#Walkthrough city of secrets free#

Worse, the traumatic nature of her treatments, combined with their ineffectiveness, has driven Naevia into a state of delusion where she can no longer see the damage she is inflicting.Īt the heart of the palace, we discover the true reason behind Naevia's efforts. The statues running around the palace are the disfigured 'survivors' of her treatment, driven to mental collapse by the pain Naevia has inflicted on them. But they are effectively one and the same, meaning that she's been flaying her patients alive.

#Walkthrough city of secrets free#

Naevia has been trying to free the statues by stripping their golden shell to get to the person underneath. The last few corridors resemble a gilded abattoir, with bodies strewn liberally about and walls coated in gore.

The deeper you go, the more graphic the scenes. Bloodstains splashed on the ground, restraining equipment smeared in gold and crimson ichor. As you approach the palace's inner sanctum, you begin to see evidence of Naevia's 'treatments'. According to her notes, Naevia has dedicated herself to trying to cure the tormented souls of their curse.Ī noble endeavour, but Naevia's intentions soon take a cruel turn. These, it turns out, were inhabitants of the city previously cursed for breaking the Golden Rule, damned to spend an eternity encased in gold. Moving further into the palace, you come across notes written by a woman named Naevia, charting her discovery of the palace and the story behind the statues. But it's effective here, partly because the statues look so creepy, scuttling toward you with their arms outstretched, but also because you simply don't expect it from a game that's otherwise about wandering around a nice wee town chatting with locals.īut the Gilding is only getting started. In System Shock 2 (opens in new tab), the Hybrids would wail 'I'm sorry' at you before swinging a pipe at your head. It creates a cognitive dissonance, putting your reason and empathy at odds with your fight and flight response.Īdmittedly, it's not an uncommon horror trope, even within games. There's something deeply troubling about encountering an 'enemy' that wants you to kill them. It quickly becomes apparent that the statues are literally begging for death, attacking you specifically so that you have no choice but to defend yourself. When you kill the statues, they thank you for it. Well, weirder than a bunch of skeletal C-3PO cosplayers trying to scratch your eyes out already is. The only way you can stop the statues is by shooting them with the bow, which covers them in an additional layer of gold and kills them.

The only problem is stealing anything in The Forgotten City breaks the Golden Rule, destroying the entire settlement and forcing you to flee into a portal that transports you back to the start of the day. Found at his market-stall, Desius wants to 'retrieve' a magical bow from the nearby shrine of Diana, arrows fired from which will transform whatever they strike into gold. That man is named Desius, an avaricious roman merchant who views the mythical King Midas as an aspirational figure. Like most bad things in life, The Gilding starts with a greedy man trying to get his hands on something that doesn't belong to him. Titled 'The Gilding', it sees you explore a labyrinthine palace while gradually unravelling a nightmarish tale of tragedy, torture, and toxic love. But there's one quest in the game that's possibly the most disturbing thing I've experienced all year. The Forgotten City (opens in new tab) is mainly a chill detective game about exploring a lush roman metropolis, solving puzzles by talking to people and manipulating a cleverly constructed time-loop.