The Sinking City 2 Review: Frogwares Trades Detective Work for Dread

There is context you should know before we talk about monsters: The Sinking City 2 was built by Frogwares, a studio in Ukraine, through power cuts and staff displacement, partly funded by a Kickstarter the CEO openly called a financial safety net. I don't score games on sympathy - but it's worth saying up front that the fact this game exists at all is remarkable. The better news: it's also good.

What it is

Released on August 18 for PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC at $49.99 (no Game Pass this time), The Sinking City 2 is a full genre pivot. The 2019 original was a detective game with awkward combat bolted on; the sequel is a survival horror with an optional investigation system. You explore a semi-open, supernaturally flooded Arkham in the 1920s - drowned alleys, tilting houses, things in the water - scraping together resources, managing ammo, and choosing between firearms, melee and running away. The story is standalone, so newcomers lose nothing.

What works

The atmosphere is the star. Unreal Engine 5 gives Frogwares by far the best-looking city they've ever built, and Arkham feels genuinely oppressive - wet, rotting, wrong. The survival horror loop has real teeth: ammo is scarce enough that every encounter is a decision, and the enemy design leans into Lovecraftian body-horror without turning into a shooting gallery. Crucially, the optional detective layer is the smartest compromise here - if you loved the first game's deduction, it's still there for secrets and side content; if you didn't, it never blocks your path. This is what a studio learning from criticism looks like.

What doesn't

This is still AA jank territory. Animations get stiff, some boss encounters outstay their welcome, and the middle act sags with a bit too much back-and-forth across the flooded map. The gunplay is serviceable rather than sharp - closer to early Resident Evil clunk than modern precision, which sometimes feels intentional and sometimes just feels old. Critics landed around 79-84 on Metacritic, and that range is honest.

Price and value

At $49.99 it undercuts full-priced AAA releases while offering a meaty campaign, and locally that price difference genuinely matters this fall, with the release calendar about to get expensive. No subscription shortcut this time, though - you're buying it or you're not.

Verdict

The Sinking City 2 is the game Frogwares has been threatening to make for a decade: a proper Lovecraftian survival horror with an identity of its own. Rough edges and a saggy mid-game keep it out of the top tier, but this is an easy recommendation for horror fans - and the best thing this studio has ever shipped.

Score: 8/10

Image: Will Hart from Fullerton, U.S.A. / CC BY 2.0, source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Prospect_Terrace_Looking_South-West_Toward_Downtown.jpg