The Sinking City 2 Review – Arkham Has Never Looked This Sinister

The Sinking City 2 Review

The Sinking City is an open-world adventure game from 2019 by developer Frogwares. For most of their career, Frogwares has created games in the Sherlock Holmes series. One of those games, Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened, added H.P. Lovecraft lore into the Sherlock Holmes detective world. The original Sinking City is an extension of those Lovecraftian aspects, and is a full-blown H.P. Lovecraft game. It has the same third-person open-world adventure game structure as the Sherlock Holmes games, including their detective investigation mechanics. The Sinking City 2 is a departure from that formula. It embraces its eldritch themes, and transforms into a more focused survival horror experience. Read on to find out if this departure is the path you’re looking for…

The Sinking City 2 has a self-contained story. Like the first game, it takes place in 1920s USA, but now in the city of Arkham. The game begins similarly to the first, with our new protagonist, Calvin Rafferty, waking from a nightmare. His partner, Faye, is in a coma. There’s a red symbol in the middle of their living room floor, surrounded by candles. Calvin can’t remember how she ended up the way she has. Fairly quickly, the player finds out that the city is literally sinking. Even though Arkham looks like a major American downtown metropolis, it’s been flooded by several stories of water. Large worms cover the environments near the water, and bring the dead back to life. The world and narrative are the highlights of The Sinking City 2.

Connected by Waterways

Arkham’s locations are connected by water sections navigated by motorboat. The gameplay POV is over-the-shoulder third-person. The player moves with the left joystick. L2 aims, and R2 fires an equipped gun. Square reloads while aiming. Circle dodges. Pressing the left joystick allows the player to run, and pressing the right joystick toggles a flashlight on/ off. R1 performs a melee attack which is useful for pushing back enemies. Because The Sinking City 2 is a survival horror game, ammo is meant to be conserved, and it’s often wise to avoid enemy encounters. Even the lowest threat reanimated corpse can absorb a full clip of ammo.

Gameplay involves a lot of environmental exploration. There are loads of documents to find. But these aren’t just the sparse flavor text drip feed of classic survival horror. There’s a ton of information to keep track of. Documents contain important story and investigation information, with loads of H.P. Lovecraft easter eggs. Documents can be combined on the Investigation menu screen. Areas have documents that can be collected to give the player clues how to solve area puzzles. The map and codex show documents that can be collected. There’s a lot to love for players who appreciate filling out checklists and completing maps.

Survival Horror Evolution

There are lots of traditional survival horror aspects to The Sinking City 2’s gameplay. Puzzles are often constructed like: a door is shut, so a fuse box has to be found, but it’s missing a fuse, which has to be found and constructed. There are lots of items to find and craft. Inventory is limited, so items have to be stored in safe rooms. There is some character customization in the form of a Talents menu, where the player can spend Eldritch Rewards on upgrades. Eldritch Rewards are experience points granted from in-game achievements. Talents can affect different aspects like combat abilities and health. The game allows players to manage different loadouts in safe rooms.

Unfortunately, shooting doesn’t feel great. It’s not bad, but combat isn’t one of The Sinking City 2’s strengths. Even though combat is often meant to be avoided, I found it more of a nuisance than an aspect of the game I looked forward to. Gunplay ended up feeling best for me on normal difficulty, but with aim assist turned on. I really enjoyed uncovering the story, exploring environments, and solving puzzles. But the combat felt like more of an obligation than a driving gameplay element. I can see how Frogwares excels with investigative adventure games, because those are still my favorite parts of The Sinking City 2.

Compared to the Original

As much as I admire the developers for evolving the gameplay of The Sinking City series, the adventure game elements of the first game are stronger than the new survival horror elements of the second game. Despite all the H.P. Lovecraft influence, The Sinking City 2’s vibes are more fantastic, detective, and weird, than outright horror. There are horror tropes, but the game never scared me. This isn’t a critique though, just something to note for survival horror fans looking for more of a scary game than a grotesque dark fantasy game.

The Sinking City 2 has lots of great accessibility options. The game has four difficulty modes that can be changed at any time. On the easiest difficulty, the player also has the option to completely turn off damage. And there are two investigation difficulty options. “Breezy” highlights information in documents, and puts matching symbols next to evidence icons. It doesn’t change the difficulty of puzzles though.

Gorgeous and Grotesque

The Unreal 5 graphics look fantastic while playing. All of the environments are full of incredible details. During cutscenes, the character models don’t hold up as well, and animations are a little stiff. This is more indicative of budget than lack of effort. The Sinking City 2 is clearly crafted with great care. The cutscene direction is excellent, as is the voice acting. The music services the investigative horror vibes well, but it’s very atmospheric. There are aren’t any memorable melodies. The developers noted several issues that they’ll be addressing with patches. The only one I experienced on PS5 was fairly noticeable framerate drops while playing on quality mode. This didn’t impede my enjoyment at all, but I know it’s important information for many.

The Sinking City 2 might not appear as slick as other modern survival horror games, like the Silent Hill 2 remake, or Cronos: The New Dawn. But it feels more unique with its combination of 1920s Lovecraftian narrative, detective mechanics, and traditional survival horror elements. Frogwares’ detective adventure game elements shine brightly. The world and story constantly compelled me. I really appreciated the traditional survival horror mechanics. But the combat was pretty bland. Despite my critiques, I loved The Sinking City 2. They don’t keep it from being an excellent game, just from being an all-time great. Curious survival horror and Frogwares fans should absolutely pick it up.

***PS5 code provided by the publisher***