Version: Digital retail review code provided by the distributor
Independence & Ethics
Region Free is entirely reader-supported and maintains full editorial independence. For more on my scoring and standards, see the Review Guide.
Every game that gets made is a miracle. The Sinking City 2, made in a warzone under the monstrous Russian invasion of Ukraine, is even more of one. It was created and now released under a constant threat of violence. The fact that it works, or that it has such high highs, is a testament to the spirit and talent of its development team.
Set in the city of Arkham, now overtaken by endless rain and an unnatural rising tide, The Sinking City 2 is a standalone sequel to the 2019 game, sharing only the Cthulhu mythology as framework.
Our anti-hero, Calvin, is an Eldrich horror investigator who, along with his partner, has spent most of his life hunting for clues and relics of the lost world. When a dangerous ritual goes wrong, his partner is trapped in a coma, and Calvin sets off on a quest across the desolate world to bring them back to life.
As Calvin descends further down the rabbit hole, the world itself seems to disintegrate around him. There's a horrifying and palpable sense that everything might go at any given moment, and it's not hard to see how developer Frogware has hauntingly placed their own experiences of life in Ukraine into this experience. In one of the most heartwrenching early moments, Calvin quietly moves past families packing away their lives, fully aware they'll never see this place again.
That combination of trauma and the sensation of reality breaking apart lends The Sinking City 2 an atmosphere you could cut with a knife. Even when the story starts to fall apart towards the end, that early half of the game is so effective that it almost, almost, doesn't matter.
The Sinking City 2 is tremendously evocative, often surpassing the inspirations it pays homage to. From derelict buildings to overflowing streets, rainswept markets and beyond, every inch of Frogware's dark fantasy drips with atmosphere. As a recreation of Lovecraft's vibrant world, it's a tremendous success.
Level design is intricate – occasionally too much so – and every level has plenty to explore. Yet the overall package never feels overwhelming in scope. By breaking down the experience to distinct levels, The Sinking City 2 gives the player room to breathe when it comes to finding hidden details and secrets. In fact, it's the first act of the game, set on the flooded streets of Arkham, that feels the most disparate, as the constant travel between locations grows tiresome fast.
But once the gameplay shifts into other famous Lovecraft locales, The Sinking City picks up pace considerably, even if it repeats the same progression pattern in each section. Each level comes with a set of locked doors, mysterious artefacts, and wildly fascinating characters who want something from Calvin before he can continue his quest. The goals are usually simple, but they quickly spiral into wonderfully demented and darkly inventive mini-adventures that work like short stories from the Cthulhu mythos.
Exploration rewards players with experience points, which in turn unlock abilities that help with faster reloads or better crafting skills. Clues can be placed on a larger canvas, where connecting the dots helps solve the more obtuse puzzles. There are two difficulties for puzzles as well, which is a fantastic way of letting everyone experience the investigative parts of the adventure on their own terms.
It's here that The Sinking City 2 is at its finest. Each aspect of exploring the unknown is brilliantly put together, and the simple joys of solving puzzles or piecing together where to go next make for an effective gameplay loop. The knowledge that the world around you is doomed gives even the smallest triumphs a bittersweet edge. You know that you're on borrowed time, and the endless wail of sirens, the roar of flooding water, and echoing howls of something in the night create a chilling whole that always excites.
This area is so strong, in fact, that it's a major bummer how The Sinking City 2 doesn't believe in its own strengths. Instead, as the game progresses, it leans further away from the Silent Hill -style dread and the Lovecraftian vibes of helplessness. By the final act, you're firing a grenade launcher at mobs of enemies, and mowing down others with a customized Tommy Gun. It's a tonal whiplash that never sits right with the finished product.
Sadly, where The Sinking City 2 falls apart is in its reliance on tedious combat that is never fun. It desperately wants to be like Resident Evil in this regard, as it spawns waves of enemies that, when damaged, break into tentacle-like forms and require carefully placed shots to weak points to be downed efficiently. But it has none of the fun or finesse of Capcom's action-heavy series, and the big combat arena sequences are horrendously boring to wade through.
Enemy variety is extremely limited, and each one is a bullet sponge that eats up the limited ammunition you can find throughout the game. Sure, you can craft ammo, but running around the map searching for meager resources that take up inventory space isn't fun, either. There is a reasonable variety of weapons to choose from, but since ammunition is severely limited everywhere except boss battles, I ended up just using the same handgun most of the time.
Unlockable emergency crates reward players with weapon expansions and modifications, but I found these mostly superficial without a major effect on the experience. For example, you can attach a tomahawk to the shotgun for more effective melee attacks, but enemies will still take anywhere from three to four hits before they fall. By that time, they've usually already stomped Calvin into a puddle.
There is a dodge function, but it's clumsy and ineffective at best, and enemies will occasionally ignore the feature entirely. Sometimes, Calvin would get stuck between a door and an enemy, as the doors close automatically and require Calvin to face them to trigger the opening animation again. Naturally, Calvin can't back out of doors, so navigating rooms becomes a case of tunnel vision. Since enemies can also attack from a distance and off-screen, there's a good chance that you enter a room and get completely ganked by creatures you haven't even seen yet.
And that doesn't even factor in the Resident Evil Nemesis-style enemies, some of which can teleport and block doors, which hunt Calvin through certain levels. Whatever the original intentions were, The Sinking City 2, in its current form, is an action game constantly running away from delivering a satisfying action experience.
In the press materials and early interviews, the developers have stated that combat isn't always the answer, and part of the survival horror comes from choosing where and when to make a stand. In practice, I found this rarely true, as The Sinking City 2 continuously forces the player into tight corridors and rooms with endlessly spawning enemies. Good luck doing any actual exploration when you're getting chomped at by a pile of zombie-like Slithers.
There's also a consistent emphasis on choosing violence. At times, the game even locks you in rooms with hordes of enemies you have to kill before you can proceed. Secondary playthroughs reward players with unlimited ammo, which defeats the purpose of survival horror elements.
Even worse are the boss battles, which there are a lot of, including a big bad at the end of the game. Without spoiling anything, the final act of the game is such a chore that I gritted my teeth and powered through it simply out of respect for the rest of the game. Even as the finale delivered a fitting send-off to the story, I found myself so worn out by the experience that it lost some of its power entirely.
These stumbles detract heavily from the tremendously moody areas of the first half of the game. The change in tone robs the rest of the game of its power, and makes The Sinking City 2 feel more like a cheap imitation than the gorgeously moody companion piece it can be.
I admire The Sinking City 2 more than I like it. Throughout my review period, more than once, I tossed my controller aside on the sofa, loudly telling the game to fuck right off with its poor controls and janky combat. Then, an hour or two later, I came back to see how the story would conclude. I kept telling myself that the developers deserve that much, at least.
But that's a hard sell, and a little off-putting, telling your audience in a roundabout way that they should feel bad if they dismiss the hell it took to finish the game. In an ideal world, The Sinking City 2 would succeed or fail on its own merits. But we don't live in an ideal world, so here we are.
As it is, The Sinking City 2 is an act of defiance in the face of overwhelming evil. It's a miracle that it even exists. There are singular elements within, be it the mood, the remarkable art design, or the rewarding exploration, that showcase incredible ambition and talent. But they go hand in hand with a conflicted tone and tremendously poorly crafted combat mechanics, which trip up an otherwise solid package.
There's a lot to admire here, and even something to love. I don't think The Sinking City 2 is an outright success, but it is a fascinating and worthwhile experience nonetheless.
