That is similar to the concept of Numenara - which is set in the future 4 billion years from now. At that point in time, the earth no longer geographically resembles anything current and has been repopulated a couple of times by disparate races of non-human sentiences. The current population (as of the the beginning of Numenara) are yet another group of humans transplanted or created in-situ and living in a world where the technologies of the past resemble magic. It seemed pretty clear that, from the background, there clearly is not a thing that is magic, but its stand-in is unknown and sometimes, unknowable, creations from a lost past.

I read "The Archers" as a kid, and really liked it, but it was the only one I had access to. I recall it was a pretty straightforward adventure, set somewhere around northern Europe in the 10th century, without any sci-fi elements... Now I'll need to revisit it and find the others. I've got a young son who would also be interested, so perhaps that's something we can do together. Thanks, man.

I can't immediately recall any sci-fi elements from The Archers myself, so that checks out. Anything to do with the lost precursor civilization tends more towards the archaic future-tech. Like in City Of The Lost God there's a magical weapon that's basically an operational laser gun. Or The Island of the Frozen Seas, which has a palace that looks like a downed spaceship complete with sarcophagi/crypods with people in them.

And you're welcome! I hope you and your son have fun! :)

Honestly, "magic is ambient nanotech that's poorly understood and difficult to invoke" is a rather tired trope, because it's an instantly obvious approach one can take. Doesn't stop people from re-using it over and over, take e.g. "The Lord of the Ice Garden" by Grzędowicz: this twist is so obvious that all the build-up feels kinda insulting to the reader's intelligence.

Right, but I don't think that it necessarily needs to be a twist.

The first two Pillars of Eternity games leaned hard into this trope, but it was never really "revealed" as a plot point -- it was just background that you uncovered as you progressed stepwise through the game. The Gods as literal hiveminds, chained to or unbound from their original core functions to varying degrees; a fallen hyper-technological society; stuff like that...

I've never liked it as a narrative element because it's such a handwave. If you're going to have "magic is nanotech", or whatever other backing, at least actually use that backing to put narrative rules on it that the reader can understand.

I sorta wish the Horizon video games’ presentation indulged the present perspective more rather than eyewink at every turn.