The Sinking City

With a distinct lack of hand-holding, in-depth investigative mechanics, and a solid mix of open world design with mythos monsters, The Sinking City is the standard for Lovecraftian games.

I had the distinct pleasure of reviewing Frogware’s The Sinking City when it first launched in 2019. As a fan of Lovecraftian horror, I knew this was a title I absolutely had to play. It can be tough to find a good Lovecraftian game and while it wasn’t without issue, the original launch of the game definitely filled that dark and brooding space in my mind. Seemingly out of the depths, the city of ...

The Sinking City was already an intriguing and worthwhile detective-thriller. But its PS5 enhancements have taken it to the next level. It’s a gorgeous-looking game, and roaming the ruined streets of Oakmont at 60FPS has never felt better. The combat is still a let-down, and more repercussions for your choices would be nice to see, but the freedom the game gives you to follow your own leads is sec...

We’re in a strange time of numerous video games inspired by the works of H.P. Lovecraft. The Sinking City is the latest such game, from developer Frogwares. If that name sounds familiar in any way, that’s because this is the developer behind the long-running Sherlock Holmes series of games. And therein lies the biggest selling point of The Sinking City: its focus on detective work. You’ll have to ...

The Sinking City has a fantastic story, atmosphere, and investigations, leading to something that feels genuinely unique. It's just a shame that it's brought down by an overabundance of crummy combat and glitches.

A detective game with a Lovecraftian twist.

The Sinking City has character. If you are a fan of Lovecraftian themes then you might still want to give this game a shot if you can look past some of its flaws. For me personally, I can't help but feel a little disappointed. I was looking forward to a detective game but felt that I was just solving a bunch of fetch quests most of the time. Those cool detective moments where I actually felt like ...

The Sinking City’s engrossing premise is ultimately betrayed by counterintuitive systems and bleak monotony.

It must also be noted that this game is a technical mess, although it never crashed. You got frame drops, screen tearing, glitchy enemies and NPCs, bad pop in, floating NPCs, and other things I am sure I missed. NPCs also don't fight back against the creatures, and ignore them for the most part. If they are in the same building, the humans generally die, but on the streets, it is like they are inv...

Without the weird Lovecraftian bits, this is a slightly janky, slightly grindy detective game that does some interesting things in a very atmospheric depiction of a profoundly depressed town. Taking them into account, I don’t know! I was confused and uncharmed by the whole thing, but I still haven’t untangled my brainnoodles. At least I’ve told you how they got tangled. Goodness, I was very intere...

The Sinking City provides a compelling story, gorgeous art, and genuine scares, but

A mountain of badness.