I’m a fan of Frogwares’ games. The Sinking City had plenty going for it, though it was far from perfect. The sequel differs considerably from its predecessor. Have those sweeping changes done the series any good? In my opinion, absolutely!

In The Sinking City 2, you once again step into the shoes of a detective with an affinity for supernatural and occult phenomena. This time, however, it is an entirely different character. Under unforeseen circumstances, his fiancée falls into a coma, and the detective sets out on a perilous journey to save her life.

The lady this whole mess is about.

Fans of Resident Evil will no doubt find the premise strikingly familiar. That is hardly a coincidence. The game contains many more similarities and nods to the genre’s leading representatives.

The Sinking City featured an open world, whereas the sequel is considerably more linear. The maps themselves make the Resident Evil inspiration fairly obvious: you explore large, enclosed locations such as hospitals and hotels, filled with locked passages, safes, and hidden caches.

That’s why so many people don’t like going to libraries.

The dark open world was one of the strongest elements of the original Sinking City. It is difficult to say whether the changes in this regard have ultimately benefited the game, but one thing remains certain: there’s no reason to worry about the atmosphere.

The city in The Sinking City 2, Arkham, appears dark and dangerous. Its oppressive atmosphere practically pours out of the screen. You wade through knee-deep water, slaughter all manner of grotesque creatures, and can almost feel the density of the fog on your own shoulders.

Space for investigation.

The gameplay has undergone significant modifications as well. The first game placed a much greater emphasis on deduction, with an open-ended investigation system. In the sequel, exploration and combat take center stage. The puzzle-solving aspect largely revolves around finding notes and documents during your explorations and connecting them on the Investigation board. It does not require much brainpower, especially since clues belonging to a particular chain of observations are marked with corresponding symbols.

My initial impression, therefore, was that the system was more or less redundant. With those symbols serving as visual markers, you could just as well match the clues into pairs and groups of three without even bothering to read them. The catch is that the scattered notes sometimes contain crucial pieces of story information that only make sense when read together.

I’ll have a shot.

For example, the separate note with a particular year doesn’t work as a safe combination – elsewhere in the game world, you find information telling you that you need to add five years to it. I have to admit, I quite like the system.

It is an interesting way of integrating exploration mechanics into the game. Beyond that, the system relies on the classic formula of finding items (mostly keys) and using them to unlock passages that lead to areas containing yet more items, and so the cycle continues. Occasionally, you will even have to take a boat back to a previous location to retrieve something you currently need. There is backtracking, certainly, but it doesn’t feel particularly tedious.

Say hello to my little friend.

Personally, I don’t like excessive exploration in games. More often than not, this kind of gameplay eventually bores me. Frogwares has implemented these systems in The Sinking City 2 so effectively, however, that boredom never had a chance.

The title can be downright hypnotic for hours on end, turning the act of wandering through soaked, bug-infested corners of the world in search of items and clues into a genuine pleasure. Magic? Occultism? I don’t know. What I do know is that I had a great time playing this game.

A gloomy yet picturesque environment.

The Sinking City 2 feels like Resident Evil, not only in terms of its story or maps, but also in its technical design. The protagonist has severely limited inventory space, so you constantly have to combine and craft items. Equally important, in the game you come across rooms where you can record your progress (here the medium is a gramophone record). In the first Sinking City, you could save your game at any time. These rooms also contain storage for your collected items, which is extremely useful given how rarely you have enough inventory space.

You can also distribute your upgrade points in these rooms. The detective’s abilities can be improved to a limited extent, with most of the upgrades focused on combat – which is a good thing, because fighting feels rather clunky at first. As you progress, you can, for example, increase reload speed or boost the damage you deal.

This thing spits out some dangerous red orbs.

That does not mean the combat completely sheds its somewhat awkward feel, but it eventually becomes pretty decent. Most monsters have vulnerable spots that you need to target if you want to take them down quickly. Once you acquire additional weapons, combat proves more interesting and varied. Of course, ammunition is predictably scarce, so sometimes the best strategy is simply to run for your life.

The Sinking City 2 is atmospheric and visually appealing. The locations with open views look particularly impressive and suitably ominous; at the same time, some of the enclosed areas are so dark that there is barely anything to admire. Of course, the game is not exactly cutting-edge: facial expressions and animations seem to already show their age.

What the hell has happened there?!

I also couldn’t shake the feeling that the title repeatedly recycles the same assets. Some locations look almost painfully similar to one another, despite being dressed up with slightly different textures. And speaking of familiar faces: why does the protagonist look like young Sherlock from Chapter One? Still, it is easy enough to overlook, because overall the game is visually solid.

The PS5 version had a tendency to stutter a little in the days leading up to release, but that particular ailment somehow disappeared afterward. Again, magic? The voice acting and music, meanwhile, are both professionally produced, and there is little to complain about in that department. I can’t say for certain whether the protagonist is voiced by the same actor as young Sherlock, but I don’t think so.

Pure poetry.

The Sinking City 2 is no longer a straightforward continuation of the original. It is essentially a different game. Almost everything has changed, from the protagonist and world design to the gameplay mechanics and technical aspects. Frogwares has taken the series in a distinctly Resident Evil-inspired direction, and personally, I am very happy with the result.

Overall, The Sinking City 2 offers an atmospheric, albeit somewhat constrained world, thoughtfully designed and remarkably engaging exploration, and a relatively simple yet surprisingly satisfying combat system. I highly recommend it.

The Sinking City 2 is available now on PC, PlayStation5, and Xbox Series X|S.

Reviewed on PS5.

A copy of The Sinking City 2 was provided by the publisher.