The Sinking City 2 Review | A New Descent into Lovecraftian Horror

Seven years after the original The Sinking City, Frogwares returns to Lovecraftian horror with a standalone sequel that follows a noticeably different direction.

Rather than simply expanding the investigative open-world formula of its predecessor, The Sinking City 2 has been rebuilt around survival horror. Limited resources, a restricted inventory, puzzles, exploration and considerably more confident combat now define the experience.

The setting also changes. This time, the story takes us to a flooded Arkham in 1929, where occult mysteries, ancient forces and creatures drawn from the Cthulhu Mythos have transformed the city into an increasingly hostile place.

No knowledge of the original game is required, making this less a direct continuation and more a new interpretation of the series' Lovecraftian identity.

A More Personal Story

The story follows Calvin Rafferty and his partner Faye Bennett, two people whose fascination with the occult leads them to attempt a ritual intended to reach the Dreamlands.

The experiment ends disastrously.

Calvin loses part of his memory, while Faye becomes trapped in a supernatural state. Finding a way to save her becomes the central motivation behind the journey through Arkham.

Despite the heavy Lovecraftian background, the narrative remains relatively easy to follow. It focuses more on Calvin and Faye's relationship than on overwhelming the player with increasingly complex metaphysical explanations.

Flashbacks and conversations gradually add context to their relationship, although the story does not always examine their responsibility for the catastrophe caused by their obsession with the occult as deeply as it could.

As a result, some of the smaller human stories scattered throughout Arkham can become more compelling than the protagonists themselves.

Faye gains a more active role as the story progresses, but her potential as a constant companion is not fully explored. Beyond dialogue and certain supernatural interactions, the game rarely makes as much use of her presence as it could.

The narrative maintains a good pace for most of the journey, although the final stretch moves noticeably faster and leaves certain revelations with less room to develop than they deserve.

A Fundamental Change From the First Game

The biggest difference between The Sinking City 2 and its predecessor goes far beyond replacing an open world with more contained areas.

Frogwares has removed much of the philosophy that defined the first game.

There are no longer extensive investigations built around witnesses, archives and multiple possible conclusions. Dialogue choices have been significantly reduced, and the moral dilemmas that once shaped how individual cases were resolved are largely gone.

Stealth has also been removed, along with the sanity system.

The absence of sanity is particularly noticeable in a game so deeply connected to the Cthulhu Mythos, where psychological deterioration would have been a natural fit.

Some investigation remains, but the sequel's identity is now clearly built around survival rather than detective work.

For players who loved the original primarily because of its investigative depth, this is not a small evolution. It is a fundamental change in direction.

Arkham Is More Than a Backdrop

The flooded Arkham of 1929 is a city that feels as though it has almost completely surrendered to supernatural disaster.

Most residents have fled, streets have become canals, and abandoned neighbourhoods, ruins and those unable or unwilling to escape are all that remain.

The sense of a society collapsing suddenly is visible everywhere.

The journey moves through a variety of locations, including flooded streets, an abandoned hotel, a hospital and the Fish Market. Each has its own visual identity and smaller stories hidden within it.

At the hospital, for example, we discover what happened when a surgeon began exploiting people who had sought shelter there. Elsewhere, an apocalyptic hotel party gradually reveals how celebration turned into bloodshed.

Scattered notes and radio broadcasts contribute heavily to that world-building.

They reveal fragments of everyday life before and during the catastrophe, strange incidents and unsettling stories that make Arkham feel like a place that existed before we arrived rather than simply a collection of horror environments.

These details are one of the game's strongest narrative tools.

Survival Horror at Its Core

The Sinking City 2 is built around familiar survival horror fundamentals.

Inventory space is intentionally limited and uses a grid-based system. Weapons, ammunition, healing items, crafting materials and quest objects compete for the same space, frequently forcing us to decide what is actually worth carrying.

Crafting focuses mainly on ammunition and healing resources.

Safe rooms provide storage, manual saves and access to Talents, but Frogwares also integrates them naturally into Calvin's story.

They appear as fragments of his memories, filled with photographs and personal objects connected to his relationship with Faye, while saving the game is handled through a record player.

It is a small detail, but one that helps an otherwise familiar survival horror system feel connected to the world.

Investigation Survives Through Puzzles

Although the extensive detective systems of the first game are gone, The Sinking City 2 does retain a lighter form of investigation through the Investigation Space.

Documents, notes and environmental clues can be connected to solve codes, optional investigations and puzzles.

Players can also decide how much assistance they want. Important information in documents can be automatically highlighted, or the game can leave us to identify relevant details ourselves.

The puzzles offer good variety.

We had to decipher occult symbols, restore generators, discover safe combinations and use facial-recognition locks inside the hospital.

Other puzzles are considerably stranger, including one involving an obelisk behind a church and another built around a taxidermied fish.

Optional puzzles are especially worthwhile because they frequently lead to weapon upgrades and other useful rewards.

Most puzzles provide enough information for the solution to emerge through observation and connecting clues rather than random experimentation, although a handful become more obscure than necessary.

Combat Is Much Better, but Bosses Are Less Convincing

Combat is considerably more direct and reliable than in the original game.

Calvin can use a pistol, shotgun, SMG, bolt-action rifle and grenade launcher, and most firearms provide a satisfying sense of weight and impact.

Ammunition remains limited, making dodging, melee attacks and simply avoiding unnecessary encounters essential parts of survival.

Most enemies also have specific weak points.

Some creatures require more than simply reducing their health. Slithers, for example, can abandon one body and move into another unless we finish them properly.

Enemy variety gradually expands as well, ranging from fish-like creatures and ranged Revenants to much larger Juggernauts, forcing us to reconsider distance, positioning and target priority.

Melee is useful for conserving ammunition, although it does not always have the necessary sense of impact and can feel inconsistent.

Some encounters also place too many enemies inside relatively confined spaces, making certain hits feel unfair rather than genuinely challenging.

The weakest part of combat comes from the mandatory gauntlets and several boss encounters.

Repeated ammunition and healing crates ensure players are unlikely to become permanently stuck, but they also remove much of the resource pressure that makes the normal survival horror sections work so well.

At times, returning through a dark corridor with only a few bullets left is considerably more stressful than fighting an actual boss.

Exploration Rewards Curiosity

Exploration is one of the game's strongest progression systems.

Each area gradually opens through locked doors, shortcuts and new paths, while the map changes the colour of rooms once everything useful inside has been collected.

Backtracking is used effectively.

Returning to familiar locations can introduce new enemies, environmental changes or previously inaccessible routes, preventing revisiting areas from feeling entirely static.

Thorough exploration rewards players with secret rooms, optional puzzles and Emergency Relief Crates containing inventory expansions, weapon upgrades and Dream Essence.

Dream Essence is used to acquire Talents for the Nightshade Mask, granting bonuses such as increased weak-point damage, more efficient crafting, faster reloads or improved durability.

Talent slots are limited, encouraging players to choose bonuses that support their preferred playstyle.

The Nightshade Mask also acts as a rechargeable survival mechanism when Calvin falls in combat, although in practice it rarely becomes one of the most important systems.

The opening area also introduces boat travel through Arkham's flooded streets.

Handling is considerably smoother than in the first game, but the mechanic is used meaningfully only near the beginning and gradually disappears from the experience. It feels like an idea that could have played a much larger role.

One structural decision is particularly important: each chapter effectively becomes a point of no return.

Once we move into the next major area, we cannot go back for secrets, upgrades or resources we left behind.

That makes thorough exploration before progressing far more important than it initially appears.

Flexible Difficulty, Limited Replayability

Combat and puzzle difficulty can be adjusted separately, giving players considerable control over the experience.

Lower settings even include accessibility options such as invulnerability, while higher difficulties make limited ammunition and healing supplies much more important and often encourage avoiding combat altogether.

A first playthrough lasts roughly 10 to 13 hours, depending on how thoroughly each area is explored.

There is also New Game+.

Eldritch Points earned through challenges and certain activities unlock post-game rewards, including Expert Talents, outfits and bonuses such as unlimited ammunition.

Not every inventory upgrade carries over, however, and there are no alternate endings or substantial new story content that dramatically change a second run.

Replayability therefore comes mainly from completing Talents, finding missed secrets and returning with a stronger character or different difficulty settings rather than experiencing a fundamentally different campaign.

Strong Visual Direction and Excellent Atmosphere

The Sinking City 2 makes very effective use of Unreal Engine 5.

Arkham's flooded streets, abandoned hospital, Fish Market and other locations feature strong environmental detail, lighting and enough visual variety to give individual areas their own identity.

The quality is not completely consistent.

Some facial animations and cutscenes look noticeably less refined than the environments around them, but overall the sequel represents a clear improvement over the original in both detail and presentation.

Atmosphere is arguably where The Sinking City 2 performs best.

Arkham remains dark, wet and hostile almost constantly. Restricted lighting and environmental design create tension even when there is no immediate threat.

The sound design is particularly effective.

Moving water, cracking ice, buzzing flies, distant noises and long periods of near silence frequently create more tension than a conventional jump scare could.

Music remains restrained, allowing the environment to carry most of the horror and reinforcing the sense of Lovecraftian isolation.

Voice acting is generally competent, although Calvin and Faye do not always deliver the emotional intensity required during the more dramatic scenes.

Faye's repeated combat warnings also become increasingly intrusive, particularly during later boss battles, where constant callouts can reduce rather than strengthen the tension.

A Technically Clean Release

From a technical perspective, our PC playthrough was particularly stable.

We encountered no crashes, progression-breaking bugs or serious recurring problems that damaged the experience.

There are occasional visual inconsistencies and minor imperfections, but they remain secondary rather than systemic issues.

Overall, The Sinking City 2 is a relatively clean release from a technical standpoint.

A Different Kind of Sinking City

The Sinking City 2 will likely appeal most to players who enjoy modern survival horror, cosmic horror and darker Lovecraftian experiences.

Its strongest moments come from the constant sense of danger, grotesque creatures, resource pressure, atmospheric exploration and puzzles that encourage careful observation.

Players expecting the detective-first philosophy of the original game, however, should understand that this is a fundamentally different experience.

The investigative depth, dialogue choices and case structure of the first game are no longer at the centre of the design.

The Sinking City 2 is not flawless.

Its boss encounters do not always match the tension of normal exploration, melee can be inconsistent, the story occasionally lacks the emotional weight its ideas deserve, and abandoning much of the detective DNA will understandably disappoint some returning players.

But Frogwares' new direction works.

Arkham is atmospheric and memorable, exploration is consistently rewarding, puzzles are well integrated, combat has improved significantly and the excellent sound design maintains tension throughout most of the journey.

The result is a coherent, demanding and genuinely enjoyable survival horror experience that gives Frogwares' Lovecraftian world a convincing new identity.

For the complete breakdown, final score and full verdict, read our full The Sinking City 2 review on Gaming-Sanctum.