The Sinking City 2 Review — Lovecraftian Survival Horror That Borrows Heavily from Resident Evil

The state of the survival horror genre on the gaming market right now is a mixed bag. On one hand, popular launchers are packed with dozens of projects of varying depth. On the other, this primarily concerns the indie sphere with all its accompanying baggage: "cheapness," a multitude of rough edges, simple stylized graphics, and so on. Moreover, there are far more "walking simulators" with horror elements here, and finding a decent survival horror is a tall order.

The AAA wing mostly delights with only two Eastern franchises that have practically monopolized the genre — Resident Evil and Silent Hill. Each new installment in these series is an event, but the gaps between releases are usually very long. In short, fans of such games often have to wait and hope for a new, appealing, and interesting project to emerge. And it seems one has finally arrived — in the form of the second numbered entry in The Sinking City series from Frogwares, dedicated to the Lovecraftian myths. But is it really that straightforward?

An important detail: the game is designed for those who are familiar with the core narratives and lore of Howard Phillips Lovecraft's works. Many names, titles, and terms crucial to the plot are not directly explained here but are mentioned as if "in passing."

The story of The Sinking City 2 tells a completely standalone narrative and is almost unconnected to the first game. At the center of the story is a new protagonist — Calvin Rafferty, an occult researcher and private detective.

During a failed expedition to the Dreamlands (author's note — a parallel fantastical dimension from Lovecraft's works; only certain people with strong imagination can enter it while asleep), Calvin performed an occult ritual that did not go as intended. As a result, the consciousness of his beloved partner — Faye Bennett — became trapped in the otherworldly realm, while her physical body fell into a coma.

To bring Faye back to life, Calvin must perform a new ancient ritual. To this end, he travels to the ominous city of Arkham, where, according to rumors, the necessary knowledge is hidden. By the time the hero arrives, the city is engulfed by a mystical flood, the population is being evacuated, and from the depths emerge worms that capture and reanimate dead bodies.

The story is not the project's most appealing aspect. It feels more like a checkbox (although sometimes the game seems to try and prove otherwise) — a way to justify the gameplay and create a "backdrop" for the unfolding events. An obvious comparison immediately comes to mind — "roughly like in Resident Evil." And this is far from the last time I will draw this parallel.

Many plot details are delivered fragmentarily — through flashbacks. And the "background" of the world has to be learned mostly through numerous notes.

Before breaking down the gameplay component of the game, let's briefly recall what the first part was like.

It was a mixed bag — both journalists and players received it with restraint, often criticizing many of the developers' decisions. The Sinking City was a third-person action-adventure: a mix of survival horror and detective.

Progressing through the story, the player searched for clues, studied archives, visited the mind palaces, and also used a special magical vision to detect hidden signs and reconstruct the chronology of past events. The detective element was perhaps the best part of the game — it didn't hold your hand, didn't place markers on the map, but encouraged you to read into the information, cross-reference it, and draw conclusions. Many of these mechanics carried over into The Sinking City from another Frogwares franchise — Sherlock Holmes.

But the other "facet" of the project — the one dedicated to survival horror — was executed much worse. Shooting felt "wooden" and clumsy, enemy animations were rough, and hitboxes were crooked. The explorable city, while seemingly vast, was empty and monotonous. Furthermore, everything was compounded by tedious backtracking.

Apparently, the developers studied the criticism and decided to learn from their mistakes: the survival mechanics in The Sinking City 2 have been significantly refined. In terms of gameplay, it is extremely close to the Resident Evil remakes: an over-the-shoulder camera, limited resources (healing items and ammo), crafting, and locations built on the Metroidvania principle.

The player will have to explore four sprawling areas — the flooded streets of Arkham (you need to navigate between key points here by motorboat), a hospital, the commercial docks, and an ancient necropolis. The core gameplay loop is also very similar to Resident Evil: shootouts with creatures, gathering resources and key items, limited inventory, "safe rooms" with storage and save points, as well as solving puzzles to advance the plot.

Unlike the first game, the shooting feels much more polished — although some animations still appear unnatural. The protagonist skillfully uses a melee attack and can dodge enemy attacks, reminiscent of Jill from Resident Evil 3. The key feature of the combat system is shooting off vulnerable points on enemy bodies. Spraying bullets at monsters is ineffective and wastes too much ammo, so you have to aim precisely at the growths that appear. By the way, enemies honestly react to hits — for example, shooting the legs will cause them to fall flat or drop to their knees: again, just like in Resident Evil. Additionally, downed enemies must be finished off with a stomp, otherwise they may revive after some time: a similar mechanic was present in the Silent Hill series. Some locations have traps that can be used to lure monsters into.

All that remains of the detective investigation from the first game is a separate interface menu that simulates the mind palace. Here you need to place clues obtained from notes and establish connections between them. Completed chains reward you with upgrade points. As for the upgrade system — no revelations here: first you need to unlock skills (for example, increased damage when the flashlight is on, or obtaining more ammo when crafting), and then place them into limited slots of the artifact mask "Night Shade" that the character carries with him. Additional slots are also unlocked with upgrade points. The second way to earn points is through supply crates scattered throughout the locations.

The "Night Shade" itself, after being charged with a special resource, can revive the protagonist once upon receiving lethal damage. And also — starting from a certain story chapter — Faye's consciousness moves into the mask, from where she communicates with Calvin as a companion character. Crafting is also straightforward — combine two or more resources and get healing items or ammunition in return. The puzzles in The Sinking City 2 are far more inventive than in Resident Evil and are more reminiscent of Silent Hill — they are often built on wordplay and metaphors.

The first locations feel interesting and pleasant: you need to progressively explore the environment, open shortcuts and additional passages, carefully conserve resources, and avoid combat when possible. There are also optional "nooks" — visiting them most often rewards you with weapon upgrades and inventory expansion. The level design here is decent, but still falls short of the Resident Evil series.

However, starting from the second half of the playthrough, you begin to realize: the game regularly recycles the same solutions. Find several parts of a fragmented story item scattered in remote parts of the location, deliver them to a key spot, and solve a puzzle. In between — skirmishes with enemies: due to the monotony of conditions and the small number of monster types, this starts to become tedious after a while. And towards the end of each stage — an arena battle with hordes of enemies. This is where things get really grim, because the survival element is almost completely killed off: on arenas, there are always several crates in which resources "respawn." The Sinking City 2 uses an adaptive resource system — the game provides exactly the items the player is lacking, much like in the Resident Evil 4 remake. The final location is downright lazy and uninspired: it's almost a corridor with numerous arenas packed with enemies.

You can see that the developers tried to experiment and introduce variety: for example, in the hospital, the player encounters an invincible monster that must be escaped from — an analogue of Mr. X or Nemesis. However, its unimpressive design and poor AI (the latter, by the way, applies to all enemies here) prevent it from being truly frightening — and in the end, it's more annoying than anything. Still, there are very few such gameplay elements, and for the most part, the game follows the cycle described above. Bosses also didn't work out: apart from special enemy types that later become regular foes, there are only two of them — and each fight is fairly straightforward and unremarkable.

Furthermore, The Sinking City 2 completely lacks one of the key hallmarks of Lovecraftian projects: the madness mechanic. In the first game, by the way, it was present: when the protagonist saw monsters, corpses, or used mystical vision, he would gradually go insane — eerie hallucinations and phantoms appeared that could attack him.

Although the second part is significantly more technically refined than the first, the developers haven't managed to fix all the rough edges. Occasionally, texture collisions and crooked hitboxes occur — ranged enemy attacks often pass through walls, and you can take damage while dodging even if there was no visual hit. The graphics also have issues: they've certainly been "upgraded," and at a glance, everything looks decent. But over time, the poor textures, "plasticine" models, crude facial animations, and various graphical artifacts start to become too glaring. Moreover, the game runs on a recent version of Unreal Engine 5 and is quite demanding — the standard "engine ailments" (stutters, freezes, sudden frame drops) are present.

After completing the game, a bonus shop opens up: here, using special points earned for completing various in-game challenges, you can purchase new costumes, additional weapons, and infinite ammunition. Once again — just like in Resident Evil.

A task for the most attentive and meticulous: how many times in this review did I compare the game to Resident Evil? And not without reason: the main source of inspiration for the developers becomes obvious within the first few hours of play. But at the same time — The Sinking City 2 objectively does not reach the bar set by Capcom, and there is very little of its "own" — unique and unusual — here.

The result is — no, not a bad game, but a very restrained project, with a maximum rating of "above average." The game currently has very high scores on popular aggregators, so I personally have formed the opinion that it is somewhat overrated. Yes, it's only a AA-project, significantly inferior in budget to Capcom or Konami games, but it's not just about graphics and technical execution. The story is average: far from the hopelessness and "cosmic dread" of Lovecraft's original works; as a result, the chosen setting feels underdeveloped and half-baked. The gameplay copies most of Resident Evil's ideas, but often falls short in execution.

Still — the game is worth checking out if you love survival horror. Even though it loses out to the major and established franchises, it looks far more appealing than the hundreds of "cheap horror games" from indie developers.