Numerama: 5/10
Fort Solis is the very materialization of boredom and arduousness. Behind strong arguments (a cast of heavyweights, the use of the Unreal Engine 5.2 graphics engine), the video game only hides a misery that transforms the experience into an ordeal. After the ecstasy of successful immersion, we realize that we are just wandering the hallways praying that the story will take off one day. It will never happen: despite the palpable tension, the stakes remain low. As a bonus, the gameplay is undeniably horrible, with heavy movements and the forgetting of a key to run which imposes a snail’s pace. Finally, the short lifespan, split between four episodes to do like Netflix, is less a defect than a quality. We very quickly want Fort Solis to end, despite this impression of having spent a thousand hours in the same game. A Mars, and it does not always start again.
IGN France: 5/10
Fort Solis is a walking simulator with a thorough and successful realization. Unfortunately, the fun aspect is completely set back and the levers generally allowing it to be ignored, such as a gripping and engaging story that encourages reflection, are absolutely not used here. So that the five hours spent on the game end up looking more like a forced march.
Gameblog: 7/10
Fort Solis is a thrilling narrative adventure. From start to finish, the tension is there, as is the drive to uncover the truth about what’s going on within the complex established on Mars. The characters make the journey even more gripping thanks to the remarkable performances of the actors who play their roles. Unfortunately, the title ends far too quickly and without ever having satisfied our thirst for knowledge. The main frame only skims over the reasons for the tragedy and it will take willpower and involvement to try to understand as much of the mysteries of Fort Solis as possible. A bold choice, but one that will surely divide.
Gamekult: 5/10
Since its official announcement at Summer Game Fest 2022, Fort Solis was relatively discreet. An almost strange situation when you know that the game could count on the voices of the illustrious Troy Baker and Roger Clark to promote it. Never mind, here we go in the direction of the Martian station of Fort Solis to respond to a distress signal that remained unanswered.
MeuPlayStation: 5.5/10
Fort Solis seems to have been created for one purpose: to be a showcase for UE5. It achieves this with excellence, but as an entertainment product or video game, it is incomplete.
Push Square: 5/10
Fort Solis starts out promising, with a weird and mysterious narrative that seems to get it right. From the environmental details to the pacing, this opening act genuinely made us think we had a Firewatch or Everybody’s Gone To Rapture in our hands. However, as the game begins to develop, the pace picks up, the story winds its way to the finish line, and the gameplay experience makes us want to throw our DualSense off the wall. There are many ways we should be impressed with the game – after all, it’s made by a team of 10 people – but in the end, Fort Solis is as dusty an experience as the Red Planet itself.
GamesRadar+: 5/10
Fort Solis starts strong but quickly struggles to work around its shortcomings. Despite a strong visual identity and a desire for absolute immersion, this narrative adventure ultimately suffers from its icy movement and capricious controls. The concept is promising, but the lack of refinement is palpable in the execution.
Press Start Australia: 5/10
Fort Solis takes about an hour of ideas and tries to expand them into a four-hour walk through a lifeless Martian facility with little to offer other than a top-notch presentation. With a distinct lack of thrills, this sci-fi thriller sadly falls flat.
TheGamer: 3/10
Fort Solis is just presentation and no substance. It feels like he blew his budget to get this cast to build some pre-launch hype, then forgot he needed substance to make it worthwhile. With a terrible story, bumpy technical issues, a frustrating user interface, and a pace so freezing I literally fell asleep at one point, Fort Solis is a waste of everyone’s time. And even Roger Clark’s delightfully graying voice can’t help it.
We Got This Covered: 3/10
Fort Solis presents itself as a thriller, but it fails to create tension or offer interesting characters. Its visuals live up to the promise of “AAA production values,” but it lacks any charm. Instead, Fort Solis plays like a walking simulator with a double hip replacement.
PlayStation Life: 7/10
Even if it explodes beautifully in the last moments of its descent, Fort Solis is a rather successful trip. Figuring out what happened at the train station is an engaging exercise that challenges players to inspect each computer and voice recorder in order to shed light on its dark mysteries. Its narrative doesn’t seem to branch out much or move in new directions, but it achieves its modest goals quite well. Fort Solis was misused as a facility by its staff, but Fallen Leaf and Black Drakkar used it well to tell an effective sci-fi thriller.
Multiplayer.it: 7/10
Fort Solis is a narrative experience that we found really fascinating, characterized by a very competent direction, by very solid interpretations and by a technical sector in Unreal Engine 5 that surprises for the quality that it is able to express, although in terms of performance I results leave much to be desired. The adventure proceeds at a slow pace, although it ends quite quickly (maybe only one session will be enough to get to the end), and so you might not even notice the frame rate drops, while the limitations of such essential gameplay will appear it’s very clear to you whether this is intentional or not.
GameSpot: 7/10
Through fiction, I have traveled to one space station or another more times than I can count, across many years and many forms of media. It’s a framework that I still appreciate – at least as an opener – and from there, stories may or may not invest in me depending on what they do with that foundation. Fort Solis places a small but intriguing cast in its off-Earth saga in a way that may be familiar, but it justifies its addition to the subgenre with its own fun twists and philosophical arguments.
The GamesMachine: 8/10
Fort Solis is a simple and satisfying narrative video game, with few real innovations but plenty of themes and reasoning points that might appeal to thriller fans. It’s not a horror movie, so don’t expect scares of any kind. It’s not even accessible to works like Dead Space and The Callisto Protocol.
GamingBolt: 8/10
Although light on engaging game mechanics (and gameplay in general), Fort Solis is a consummate narrative experience. Boasting an engrossing story, atmospheric setting, and excellent acting performances, this is an accomplished debut outing for indie studio Fallen Leaf.