Not that long ago, it didn\u2019t even seem like we were going to see a sequel to The Sinking City at all, since Ukrainian developer Frogwares was hit just as hard by the economic and material consequences of Russia\u2019s invasion of the country in 2022. But in 2024, The Sinking City 2 was announced, in 2025 the Kickstarter to help fund it was completed, and earlier this month, I got to spend a couple of hours soaking in its cosmic juices. There are some differences small and large in this sequel \u2013 a different story and protagonist, a different titular sinking city, and scaling back from an open-world adventure to a more survival horror action game \u2013 but doesn\u2019t this help the series float above its peers?<\/p>\n
A few things are pretty similar between the first and second games right off the bat. You play a private detective wading through knee-deep flood waters in a post-Great War city in New England. You\u2019ll travel around that city, chatting up its very colorful denizens and sniffing around dark corners in order to find leads to uncover the source of the dark magic that\u2019s giving everyone the heebie-jeebies around here.<\/p>\n
But this is not <\/em>a direct sequel to the story of the first game. Though similarly leather jacketed and fedora\u2019d, Calvin Rafferty is a much different guy than previous protagonist Charles Reed. He\u2019s still haunted by ghosts, but as Charles\u2019 were more metaphorical due to all that PTSD, Calvin\u2019s are literal. His lover and partner in crime, Faye, has had her spirit separated from her body, and it inhabits a mask that he carries around with him. The famous Arkham City is the one sinking this time, and Calvin believes that somewhere in it is the key to returning Faye to this mortal coil. Even though I didn\u2019t spend much time with them, this duo is a huge step up from the last game\u2019s protagonist in terms of depth and even likability. The latter isn\u2019t as important if the former is there, of course, but I certainly enjoy Calvin more than Charles, and I\u2019m much more invested in his mission and the future for him and Faye.<\/p>\n The scope of our hands-on demo was two different sections of missions spread across different parts of the game to show off the new investigative bits and more action-centric sections, respectively. The Sinking City 2 scales back the open-worldiness of the first to lay out most focused areas that cut down on the tedious backtracking of the first game\u2019s zones and are more dense with stuff to see and do. I\u2019m not sure that my short trip through the water-logged streets of Arkham was enough to really compare scale to the first game directly, but the pacing of both missions felt more intentional. <\/p>\n The first Sinking City had an interesting world, sort of melting several of Lovecraft\u2019s stories into one big pot of magical fish devil soup. Fish-faced people and gorilla men shared the Oakmont streets with \u201cregular\u201d people in what could be mistaken as a twisted sort of harmony at first glance. In the bit of Sinking City 2 I played, there was barely anyone in Arkham alive to speak to \u2013 though the ones that were around were thoroughly strange, including a man who traded his eyes for slithering leeches that gave him the ability to \u201csee beyond the veil.\u201d What I did get a big helping of is how this sequel leans even more heavily into the science fiction of it all. In the second mission in an abandoned hospital, doors are locked by futuristic (by 1920\u2019s standards) facial scan devices, for instance. This all came together to create a world that speaks the weirdness out loud instead of in whispers, and points to a final project that wants to take every opportunity it has to make a unique case for this cosmic horror presentation in a setting that is filled to the brim with contemporaries.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n Some new approaches to old investigation and puzzle systems were very welcome. Specifically, the investigation part is overhauled. Instead of having to take clues to specific points in Oakmont to research what they could mean for you takes ahead, sometimes requiring hours of trial and error to get right, the original\u2019s Mind Palace concept has been expanded, allowing you to make connections through leads and clues from anywhere. In action, the new Investigation Space acts like an evidence board to pin your clues to and gives you the option to link pieces of evidence together to group them. It\u2019s similar to but not as elaborate as the system in fellow Cthulhu Mythos-themed game, The Cosmic Abyss, but it\u2019s a way easier system for organizing your thoughts without completely abandoning the sleuthing that made the first game stand out among its third-person action-adventure peers. I do miss the flavor of having to go to the library to fill out details of a case that I’m missing, but I don\u2019t think I’ll miss the labor of actually doing it.<\/p>\n The one real puzzle I got my brain around was a pretty standard one. I needed to organize the symbols on a pylon in the right sequence in order to activate an object, with clues about those details scattered around the area and ready to be found if I was ready to take the time to look. Without elements like Minds Eye, the sort of detective mode\/precognition mechanic from the first game, present here, there was really nothing more to finding the answer than reading some notes conveniently left behind by cultists. Also not present in the demo was a good example of one of the original Sinking City\u2019s greatest strengths: morally ambiguous choice making. I didn\u2019t really make any decisions here outside of if to shoot a monster and where.<\/p>\n Combat is as inconsistent as the gifts from the elder gods. While trudging through the wet streets of Arkham, enemies come in small bursts. The twisted corpses that rise from the whatever state of undeath they were in shimmy at you at a staggered pace. They\u2019re pretty durable save for pulsating boils on their bodies that beg to be popped with a bullet. It\u2019ll regrow some other place on their mangled form, but waiting and shooting the next one is more efficient than just spraying and praying. They\u2019re manageable alone, but as their numbers grow, you run desperately out of time to put a bead on these weak points and pull the trigger.<\/p>\n <\/p>\nThe Sinking City 2 Screenshots<\/h3>\n