The Sinking City 2's Shift To Survival Horror Leaves It Treading For Air

The first Sinking City was an ambitious swing for developer Frogwares. It was open-world, featured a massive, flooded city to explore, had loads of side quests, and made an--albeit flawed--attempt at third-person horror action. All of that wove together with the studio's signature detective-mystery roots to make an experience that wasn't very good, but was at least worth trying or paying attention to.

Before The Sinking City, Frogwares had iterated on the deduction mechanics of the detective genre one Sherlock Holmes game at a time, sprinkling in influences from other genres along the way, from open-ended exploration in Crimes and Punishment, to light combat with The Devil's Daughter. But neither were as stark in genre shift or as daring in scale as The Sinking City--even if those bold decisions were to the game's own detriment.

The Sinking City 2, on the other hand, is not as ambitious. Instead of aiming for the same heights as the first game and Sherlock Holmes: Chapter One, Frogwares has whittled The Sinking City 2 down into a genre more safely suited for its Lovecraftian Psychological roots: survival horror. And, yes, that makes sense, but while the first Sinking City has its share of blemishes for its stiff combat and underbaked open world, I had a soft spot for its earnest ambitions. It was clear the studio had aimed for something higher, even if it couldn't quite reach it.

But where I'd often say Frogwares swung punches above its own weight, The Sinking City 2 jabs at the waistline, and it isn't leaving a mark. The pivot to survival horror should have been a slam dunk for me--a survival horror and detective game obsessor. Contrary, my two hours of hands-on time with the game left me feeling unsurprised, unchallenged, and, most disappointing of all, uninspired.

The Sinking City 2 is following a well-proven, tried-and-true blueprint laid down by recent champions of the genre post-Resident Evil 7 (Alan Wake 2, Silent Hill 2 remake, and Resident Evil Requiem to name a few). Instead of trotting in an open-world investigation adventure, in The Sinking City 2 I navigated confined labyrinthian settings like a library, a graveyard, and a spooky hospital. I wandered through halls, met doors locked from the other side, and managed a limited inventory system while collecting keys, puzzle pieces, and crafting items. Ammo was scarce and enemies had a knack for appearing where there was little wiggle room to escape. I'd kite the shambling zombies around furniture, giving me space and time for my reticle to focus on their giant please-shoot-here buboes before popping a few rounds and downing them.

There are also safe rooms that play calming music fitted with a chest to store items; maps signify when all items have been found in a room; extra inventory slots and weapon upgrades are found in special chests throughout the world. If this reads like a survival-horror genre checklist, that's because it is.

In doubling down on the genre's mainstays, The Sinking City 2 feels rote and unimaginative in design, leaving someone like me feeling like I was sleepwalking through my experience. This shuffling walk through familiarity was made all the more dreary due to The Sinking City 2's lack of challenge. I opted to play on its hard difficulty during my first playthrough, but tensions never rose high enough due to enemies with obvious weak spots and predictable movement patterns. That isn't to say I never died--I did. But the tango with death and survival wasn't all that enticing due in part to stiff movement and unsatisfying gunplay. Overcoming a firefight with a couple zombies and Stygians (spider-like creatures that leap at you) didn't feel like I came out having survived by the skin of my teeth, but rather a mosey around avoiding danger, and waiting to shoot a weak spot at the right time.

The balance of finding crafting items, while crafting resources like more ammo and health--or strategically not picking up items to save for later--fired off the usual neurons in my noggin, but little effort was made to subvert my expectations in meaningful ways I hadn't already seen attempted by the genre. I did go back and play the game on its hardest difficulty, but due to my familiarity with the demo, the difference in challenge was less than negligible, making the extra playthrough more affirming of its uninspired design.

Investigations make their return, albeit more drawn back than Frogwares is known for. You'll collect evidence to piece together and organize in a metaphysical-like evidence board. You can place evidence wherever you want, link them together, and even select groups of threads to organize to your heart's content. Link multiple connecting pieces of evidence together, and the link between them will glow green, signifying they all match. The reward for doing so is sometimes revealing an enemy type's weak spot, a locker combination, or puzzle solutions required to progress. It feels optional, and serves mostly as a visual tool to keep track of the game's few puzzles. The Investigation board is functional and intuitive, and I hope to see more of it in the full game. But it's clear the detective work is a supporting role compared to what's seen in the developer's other outings, and considering that's what the studio is best at, this limitation of the feature feels like a misstep.

While the game's combat and take on survival horror left me operating on auto-pilot, The Sinking City 2's narrative has a few more threads worth holding onto. Featuring an all new protagonist and story, you play as Calvin Rafferty--an Indiana Jones-like archetype fit with a fedora, brown leather jacket, and Harrison Ford snark (minus the charm). But instead of raiding tombs, he's an adventurer of occults, joined alongside his more elegant and endearing better half, Faye Bennett. As excavators of the supernatural, performing rituals is their bag--that is, until one performed by the duo to enter a place called Dreamlands goes awry. When they return, Calvin has lost all memory of the trip and Faye falls into a coma. Calvin is thrust onto a journey through the flooded 1920s fictional US city of Arkham to seek out those who can help him bring her back, even if that means stepping further into cosmic terror.

I was only able to see the game's opening cutscene and a small moment to follow, leaving my time with it rather removed from its major narrative beats. Still, from what I saw, there's an emotional depth rumbling beneath the surface-level, by-the-numbers genre staples. There feels like there is a compelling thread in the story in that you're playing as a man bent on entering a nightmarish place to bring his wife back from a perceived coma. I'm a romantic, I can't help it. There's also the mystery of Calvin's memory loss that has enticed me with my own predictions. And that lingering mystery and romance is making up in spades for the game's subpar design everywhere else.

With its Sherlock Holmes series, Frogwares carved out its own corner, evolving its take on the detective genre one game at a time. It took big swings--and even some liberties--with each iteration. The Sinking City 2 feels like a safer bet. This dialed-back pivot could be due in part to the effects of the Ukrainian-Russian war, as Frogwares is a Ukrainian studio based in Kyiv, one of the many cities targeted in the conflict--a fact the game addresses with a message at the start. Scaling The Sinking City 2 back feels like a reaction to the first game's rocky reception, while also riding the tail of a genre at its prime, and a reeling back in scope of uncertainty due to the current war. But when examining The Sinking City 2 on its own merits, its shift to survival horror leaves it in a wash of other games already helming the genre. This is as much a benefit as it is a detriment to The Sinking City 2.

From the two hours I played, The Sinking City 2 feels like an imitation of the genre's best-known magic tricks, feeling predictable and absent of wonder. With still so much left to see upon the game's full release later this year, I hold out hope to be surprised and scared. But in the meantime, I'm far too aware of this game's smoke and mirror placements.