Some games get made despite everything working against them, and those are the ones worth talking about. The Sinking City 2 is a survival horror game from Frogwares, the direct follow-up to the studio’s 2019 action-adventure, and it was built while the devs’ own real-world cities were under siege. You’d never know it from how confident the finished product feels. It’s not perfect — there are bugs and a leftover progression system that drag it down — but across pretty much everything else it hits a level of mastery that few horror games ever reach.
I could describe it all day, but honestly, this is the kind of game you’ve gotta play to truly appreciate. Only the truly mad would skip it, and even the horrified will come back for more.
What’s the Story About?
Arkham, Massachusetts, circa 1929. The air reeks of fish and the cobblestones are coated in slime. Half the city has been swallowed by some mysterious force, and the Slither — those squirming, worm-like abominations — have claimed whatever’s left. Most people would call that a disaster. For Frogwares, it’s a triumph.
You play as Calvin Rafferty, a man on a mission. Months earlier, a failed dream ritual sent the woman he loves, Faye, into an endless sleep. The only way to wake her is a different ritual, and its components are scattered somewhere across the sinking city. Nothing’s going to stop him from finding them. Any sensible person would’ve bailed weeks ago, but Calvin isn’t sensible anymore.
It’s a strong setup with some really solid follow-through. The inciting incident is fresh without being outlandish, and the story that unfolds stays surprisingly grounded despite tentacles bursting out of the walls. Calvin is handled with real nuance and sincerity — a desperation you rarely see in survival horror protagonists, especially when you contrast how impulsive he is now with the suave guy he was earlier.
The world-building is on point too. It leans on Lovecraft’s universe just enough to feel recognizable without being a total rip-off, and the original characters zigzag through a mystery that’s genuinely theirs. The beats themselves are pretty textbook: mortals mess with something they shouldn’t have, a supernatural disaster creeps in, they investigate, and then they realize how hopelessly out of their depth they are. Things end badly… probably. No spoilers, but what do you expect from a story set in a city sinking into the deep?
It’s a great combo of a tried-and-true formula and creative twists. Maybe it isn’t as dense and esoteric as actual Lovecraft writing, but that’s more a limitation of the medium than a knock against its quality.
How It Actually Plays
Slow, Strategic Gunplay
Switching gears to gameplay, this is a slow, methodical crawl through a flooded Arkham, much like its predecessor. Your main threat while exploring is the Slithers, and fighting them feels way closer to the modern Resident Evil games than to Left 4 Dead 2.
First off, your guns are pretty underwhelming and ammo is super scarce. It’s 1929, so you can’t expect much fancier than a Tommy Gun — and of course, you don’t even start with that. Bullets and every consumable, from healing kits to extra lives, have to be crafted or found, each with its own recipe, and your inventory space is tight to boot.
Second, enemies have glowing weak points to shoot at, plus reactive behavior depending on where and how much damage they take. It’s like modern Resident Evil meets Dead Space’s Necromorphs, blending careful resource management with precise shooting.
I’m a huge fan. Feeling small and helpless is the core of Lovecraftian horror, and never letting the player just go in guns blazing is the perfect way to nail it. You’ve gotta be smart, pick your fights, and make solid decisions if you want to survive. It captures that vibe of scraping by in an uncaring, ever-shifting universe.
Player agency is never a problem. Almost every encounter is optional and can be tackled from whatever angle you want, and outside the hardest difficulties the resource drops are balanced so you’re never completely stuck — but never drowning in options either. The “boss fights” are a great example: they’re basically extended, tweaked regular encounters where you’re dealing with hordes while unlimited ammo sits in respawning caches around the arena. You can take your time and be methodical, but you’ve gotta reach those ammo spots first, and there’s hell to pay getting to them.
It’s quite the balancing act, though it does get a bit repetitive around the fifth hour, especially while you’re also juggling puzzles. Enemy variety could use some work too — you’d think unknowable cosmic horrors would come in more flavors of eldritch, but you’ll get about five at most. Keep those limitations in mind and you’ll have more than enough fuel to power through.
The Investigation Board Is the Real Star
Between combat encounters, the game’s other major pillar is a welcome palate cleanser: investigation puzzles. Getting around Arkham is never a simple Point A to Point B trip. Between one slime-covered location and the next, there’s a gauntlet of puzzles, some optional and some mandatory.
What makes it special is how it handles the solving. An on-demand Investigation Board replaces the first game’s crime scene breakdowns. Picture those conspiracy corkboards with red yarn connecting each pushpin, ripe for analysis and begging for a conclusion. You collect clues, review them, pin them to the board, and physically link them to show connections — or just to stay organized. The puzzles themselves are as open-ended as possible, which gives you real agency in piecing things together.
The obelisk puzzle in the first chapter is the best example, set in a flooded graveyard and church in the middle of Arkham. It needs a three-part clue chain that you find by searching every corner of the area, and each piece is essential: one tells you what each symbol means, one shows the order, and one tells you what to do after. Every puzzle follows that connect-the-dots principle, sometimes with multiple leaps of logic, and you might have to do it physically as well as mentally before you even locate the puzzle they’re meant to clue you into.
There’s no abstract brain teaser here, no cheap skill check. It’s genuine investigative work that demands real sleuthing, and it gives the whole game a distinct rhythm of survival, investigation, and exploration.
It Looks and Sounds Great
On presentation — audio, visual, and mechanical design — this game is operating at or near the top of its class. The visuals aren’t the absolute highest fidelity even on PlayStation, but they’re brilliantly directed. Arkham’s sinking feels like a genuine large-scale crisis and a personal one at the same time, and a lot of that comes from masterful environmental storytelling. You can feel the weight of the water, the sliminess of the Slither, and the sheer calamity of the Sinking just from how buildings are arranged, what debris bounces off your boat, and what wreckage litters the floating structures.
Stage design is maze-like, but in a way that makes sense in-world, fully embracing the esoteric nature of Arkham’s undercurrents and the strange electro-occult tech of Miskatonic University to justify the weirdness. Almost nothing goes unexplained except the things deliberately left mysterious — like what’s actually causing Arkham to sink.
The sound design is just as strong, with voice performances at or above what most people would consider industry standard. The dialogue isn’t cheesy, and it has just enough Lovecraft-speak to feel like a genuine entry in his universe. And the music — how it caresses my brain like a Mi-Go on a lunch break. It’s a haunting, guttural collection of tracks that make me want to dissolve into the ether of Azathoth’s dream, which is a good thing, weird as that sounds. I wouldn’t call it award-worthy, since it’s not exactly toe-tapping material, but as a companion to the game’s atmosphere? Top marks.
There’s Plenty After the Credits, Too
The base game is packed as-is, spanning a meaty 12-16 hours across four major areas that average 2-3 hours each. If that somehow isn’t enough, there’s a New Game+ mode that carries over all your upgrades and talents, with cosmetics unlocked once you finish it.
Can’t wait that long, or just want something extra for your NG+ run? You can earn Eldritch Points by completing specific achievements and spend them on cosmetics for Calvin, Faye, or their weapons. That’s genuinely surprising. Outside of premium and deluxe editions, games at this tier and price point usually give you just the base game, maybe a DLC if you’re lucky. Frogwares clearly had the game’s value in mind.
What Clicks and What Doesn’t
Unfortunately, not all the horrors here are intentional. Some glitches slipped through. The biggest one is that the game just doesn’t run as well on console. I’m no stranger to shooters feeling worse on console and I’ve tweaked plenty of settings to compensate — but precision shooting is a core mechanic that tons of other systems build on, so it feeling noticeably worse on one platform comes across as more than a minor inconsistency. It’s not a dealbreaker, nothing that can’t be overcome with practice, but it’s worth knowing if you’re choosing between platforms.
There’s also the vestigial progression. I don’t mean the natural drip of new weapons and mechanics, which is handled flawlessly. I mean the Nightshade Mask and its many small upgrades. Thorough investigation earns you points for passive bonuses — slightly more damage in the dark, big melee damage after a kill, less damage from humanoid enemies. They sound great on paper and fall flat in practice, barely noticeable unless you’re on the hardest difficulty where every edge counts.
The same applies to weapon upgrades, made worse by clunky console controls. Getting more damage at specific points after aiming down sights isn’t worth much when you’re also trying to land shots on a body part flailing around a shambling zombie, even less so when there are four of them and your precision has the feel of a tank’s controls. Lastly, there are a few spawning and visual bugs worth flagging. More than once, enemies have materialized out of nowhere at spawn points the player shouldn’t be able to see. I’ve cheesed multiple encounters that way, and I’m pretty sure that’s not the intended strategy.
Is The Sinking City 2 Worth It?
Yes — you’d be mad to think otherwise
Coming in at a very fair $49.99, The Sinking City 2 offers exactly what you’d expect from an AA title and a fully fleshed-out sequel. On top of that you get a solid suite of post-game unlocks, including a separately balanced New Game+ experience. Stack that on a base game running 12-16 hours and you’re definitely getting your money’s worth if you can swing the asking price. Fifty bucks isn’t nothing, but it’ll feel like a steal once the game gets rolling.
Does it support AMD FSR?
No. According to the developers in an official Steam Community FAQ, “FSR is not currently supported. AMD has not yet released the required plugin/patch for Unreal Engine 5.8. FSR will be added once it becomes available.”
How do I get Talent Points and Dream Essence?
According to the developers, it comes down to exploring each level, solving investigations, and connecting your clues.
The Bottom Line
What more can I say that I haven’t already? It’s an amazing product that delivers the textbook Lovecraft experience and then some. Nailing every thematic and narrative beat would be impressive enough on its own; adding original twists on top makes this a must-play for Lovecraftian horror fans, or horror fans in general. The streamlined investigation and the deliberately slow combat pacing show a dev team with a clear vision from day one, and they never hold your hand.
On its own, this game stands at the summit of greatness. Considering it was made amid the real horrors of a warzone, words can’t fully do justice to what they pulled off. Like a mere mortal staring into the unknowable, I can only stand in awe and drag others along to experience it too.
The Sinking City 2 delivers a excellent experience with a score of 90/100.