The Sinking City 2: Story and Gameplay Review
Título: The Sinking City 2
Developer: Frogwares
Publisher: Frogwares
Release Date: August, 2026
Genre: Survival Horror / Lovecraftian Horror
Engine: Unreal Engine 5
Platforms: Playstation 5 / Windows / Xbox Series X/S
“The Sinking City 2” is a horror game inspired by and set in the universe of H.P. Lovecraft, developed and published by Frogwares and released in August 2026. The game is a sequel to The Sinking City (2019), but tells a new story that is independent from the previous one, set in the famous city of Arkham during the 1920s.
At first, this game is a pleasant surprise, considering the problems the first one had at launch and with performance, as well as the fact that it was never a particularly popular entry. However, with the release of The Sinking City Remastered, Frogwares showed that they were still interested in their project, and the announcement of the sequel soon followed.
Unlike its predecessor, which was an open-world game, the sequel is a more linear Survival Horror focused on combat, item management, solving puzzles, and navigating and progressing through the map. This also helps to put more emphasis on the horror side of things. Basically, what we have here is a modern Survival Horror mixed with Lovecraft. We could hardly ask for more.
This time, we play as Calvin Rafferty, an adventurer on a quest to awaken his partner Faye, who has fallen into a supernatural coma. To do so, he will have to cross a sunken Arkham filled with creatures of cosmic origin.
The Plot of "The Sinking City 2"
Flooded Arkham
“The Sinking City 2” begins with Calvin Rafferty visiting a woman named Faye Bennet at a restaurant, where he reveals to her that he has managed to find a book called Book of Dreaming, which they had both been searching for. However, everything around them changes, including Faye’s appearance, and she blames him for what happened.
Calvin wakes up from this nightmare in a bedroom. Faye is lying on the bed with a mask called the Night Shade over her face. Faye is in a sort of supernatural coma, the result of a ritual performed by both characters. As far as we know, she is trapped in another plane, a realm of dreams known as the Dreamlands. During the three months Faye has been in this state, the city of Arkham has been hit by a series of floods that have covered the entire city, as well as bringing the Slither plague, a type of parasitic worm that takes over the bodies of dead people and controls them.
This is the final day of the rescue operation in Arkham before the city is completely abandoned, and the radio broadcasts tell all survivors to make their way to an evacuation zone. However, Calvin still cannot leave. According to his research, there is a ritual called “The Call” in a book called Recitations of the Tenebrous Soul that can reverse Faye’s condition. For this, he will also need the Dagger of Ulthar, or Ult’hkandor.
Calvin begins his journey through the waterways that have formed across the city, heading towards the Miskatonic library, where a copy of the book is kept in a secret annex. Along the way, he has to deal with a series of corpses zombified by the Worms and witness the destruction that has befallen Arkham. As soon as he reaches the entrance to the library, Calvin is attacked by a giant tentacle emerging from the water, which nearly kills him.
We discover that Calvin and Faye met at the library, both interested in the occult and driven by a spirit of discovery. It was there that they came across information about the Dreamlands, which would bring them together and lead them into this disastrous quest.
Calvin survives the attack and manages to recover the book, but it is written in a language he cannot read. Fortunately, he finds Corentin in the library itself, a man who removed his own eyes and replaced them with Slither Worms, giving him the ability to understand the creatures and their language better. Corentin makes a deal with Calvin. While he translates the ritual instructions in the book, Calvin must go to the Devil’s Reef Hotel to find and bring back a woman named Lorelei who is trapped there.
When he arrives at the hotel, we discover that Lorelei is a siren, tied up and hanging from the main stage in the lobby. The night before, the hotel’s guests had taken part in a “World’s End Party”, whose prize was a night of lust with Lorelei herself, before she devoured them. Since none of the guests survived their battle with her, Lorelei ended up trapped there. Now, the hotel is full of zombies that Calvin has to deal with before he can free the siren and take her to Corentin.
Corentin keeps his promise and gives Calvin the translation, revealing that he actually wanted Lorelai so he could feed the Slithers inside his eyes.
Back at the flat, Calvin performs the ritual using the dagger and reciting the words that invoke Yog-Sothoth. However, he is abruptly interrupted by the same giant tentacle from before, which knocks him unconscious and steals Faye’s body. When he comes around, Calvin sees Faye in an incorporeal form, like a spirit.
Akeley Hospital
Faye can now accompany Calvin in her ethereal form, switching between inhabiting the Night Shade mask and existing outside it as a ghost. The two of them continue their search for her body, guided by Faye, who can sense where it is. This leads them to Akeley Hospital, which is already infested with aberrations. Inside, Faye’s body is being held by a machine known as The Eye.
The machine was used by the hospital’s only survivor, head surgeon Dr Thaddeus Lowe, to cure illnesses using its supernatural power. We can also see a series of strange experiments throughout the hospital, involving the removal of faces and the preservation of countless brains, some of which are still capable of communicating.
Later, after searching the hospital for a way to deactivate The Eye, Calvin and Faye encounter the doctor, who turns out to be a Mi-Go disguised beneath Thaddeus’s skin. The creature attacks Calvin with its powers, but suddenly stops after reading Faye’s mind and discovering that she is a Dreamer and therefore serves “His” purposes. The Mi-Go backs away and allows them both to leave. Calvin manages to shut down the machine, but once again, the giant creature appears to steal Faye’s body and escape.
Calvin even tries to catch it, but it is useless. Calvin ends up having a crisis where he feels as though his stomach is being pierced, and then some of his blood floats toward Faye’s specter.
Arkham Fish Market
This time, they reach Arkham’s large Fish Market, which was abandoned shortly after the flooding began because rumours had spread that monsters were attacking the place. Calvin climbs onto the roof and sees Faye’s body being taken inside a ship that has crashed into the building and become stranded there.
Inside, he has to deal with a series of starfish-like creatures that block doors and can only be opened using a type of jar called Layden Jars. He needs to find three of these Layden Jars. During his search, he discovers that the creatures attacking the Fish Market were Deep Ones that had emerged from the sea and serve the Slither Prime, which is responsible for spreading the Worms that infected the city.
To obtain the final Layden Jar, Calvin receives help from a mysterious man chained up inside the building with fish-like features, including scales, named Ma Fishface. According to him, the only way to obtain the third Layden Jar is through a device called the Antikythera, which can travel back in time. With Faye’s help, they activate the device and Calvin retrieves the third Layden Jar.
Calvin can then enter the ship, where he once again sees Faye’s body surrounded by The Eye. The giant creature that had been making Calvin’s life difficult turns out to be a Shoggoth controlled by the Slither Prime, and the two engage in a battle that ends with the Shoggoth’s death. Calvin, however, has a fragmented vision of what happened when they were in the other plane. Faye appears to be making a pact with Yog-Sothoth.
He begins to suspect Faye, believing that she might be manipulating him in some way. The Eye turns out to be a portal through which Faye’s body has been taken, and Calvin crosses through it.
Arctic
The portal takes Calvin to the Arctic, more precisely to a mountain filled with caves. There, he discovers the base of an expedition, but there are only dead bodies left at the site. The expedition excavated the ruins of an alien city buried beneath the ice, which turns out to be the temple of the Outer God Yog-Sothoth. Somehow, they released the Slither Prime there and caused the flooding that hit Arkham through a portal beneath the Fish Market.
Calvin ventures further into the temple, realising that it belongs to creatures from another world and that Yog-Sothoth itself attempted to break through into our reality. Now, not only is Faye’s body in danger, but the entire city of Arkham and possibly the world as well.
The Mi-Go itself returns and helps them continue further into the temple. The couple eventually have a conversation where Calvin tells Faye that he had intended to propose to her before everything happened. Faye then regains Calvin’s trust and proposes to him right there, which he accepts.
In the deepest part of the temple, Calvin finds himself in the same setting he had seen in his flashbacks, where he and Faye entered through the ritual in the Book of Dreaming. There, he finally sees the Slither Prime. They have one final battle, which ends with Calvin defeating the creature.
Calvin begins the ritual to awaken Faye’s body. At that moment, they both recover their memories of what happened on the day they entered this place. The couple performed the ritual to access the Dreamlands, and once inside, they encountered the Slither Prime, which killed Calvin by impaling him through the stomach. Desperate, Faye made a pact and offered her own life to Yog-Sothoth in exchange for bringing Calvin back to life. The entity then removed Faye’s spirit from her body and placed it inside Calvin’s body to sustain him, allowing him to awaken back in Arkham.
From that point onwards, Yog-Sothoth’s servants, the Slither Prime and the Mi-Go, have been drawing Calvin and Faye back to their temple. Since Faye is a Dreamer, she can complete the ritual and unleash Yog-Sothoth upon the city of Arkham, allowing it to devour the souls of everyone who remains.
Calvin and Faye accept the god’s proposal and open the portal that allows Yog-Sothoth to descend upon Arkham, while the couple embrace and get what they wanted from the beginning: to remain together.
Mythos
The game uses three parts of Lovecraft’s stories to build its narrative. The first is the Dreamlands. Within the Lovecraftian universe, the Dreamlands is another plane that can only be accessed through dreams, and it is the setting for some of his stories, such as “The Cats of Ulthar”, “Celephaïs”, “The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath” and “The Quest of Iranon” (I think, at least), along with several others.
The nature of the Dreamlands is confusing and somewhat unexplored, competing directly with the more Sci-Fi side of the Mythos. We know that there is a world of its own there, with gods living alongside other creatures. It is even strange to realise that some stories take place in the Dreamlands because, on a first read, you might think they are set in humanity’s past.
Another part of the Mythos is Arkham, the cursed city in Massachusetts and home of Miskatonic University. Although Arkham is the most recurring setting in Lovecraft’s stories, it does not appear often enough or receive enough detail for us to have an official vision of the city. The only story where Arkham really has a substantial presence is “Herbert West-Reanimator”. In general, Arkham is usually just mentioned.
The third part of the Mythos used in the narrative is Yog-Sothoth, in my opinion, the true villain of Lovecraftian stories. I don’t think anyone else has had as many chances to destroy the world as Yog-Sothoth. “The Dunwich Horror”, “The Case of Charles Dexter Ward”, “Through the Gates of the Silver Key”. I think this is because it can be summoned through the ritual described in the Necronomicon.
The story also features other elements from the Mythos, but they are smaller ones, such as the Mi-Go and the fact that it collects brains and conducts experiments on them, which is typical of the species. Now, being a little pedantic, the Mi-Go refers to itself as Mi-Go in the game, which should not happen. As for the Shoggoth, well, it is just another Shoggoth.
“The Sinking City 2” introduces some original characteristics to the Mythos, such as its own version of the Dreamlands and the possibility of accessing Yog-Sothoth through it and making a pact with him.
Graphics and Art Direction
“The Sinking City 2” is a dark game with a bit of a Pulp look at times. The colour palette is mostly grey with earthy tones, which fits the atmosphere and architecture of New England. Speaking of atmosphere, this is the best part of the game, with that feeling of decadence found in the sort of world where authors like Lovecraft wrote, sometimes a little noir, sometimes a little Gothic.
A lot of this, of course, comes from the lighting, which, my God, makes the scenery jump right out at you. The scenery is already good on its own. Arkham falling apart, with its flooded streets, looks great as a dark version of Venice. However, the lighting adds another level to the immersion. The exterior areas are, as I said, grey and bright, with a sort of indirect light that enhances the city’s apocalyptic and ambiguous atmosphere. Of course, there are some corridors and locations that give off that 1920s jazz atmosphere, with reddish signs. The interiors, meanwhile, are dark, filled with shadowy corners and, at certain points, even difficult to see.
The game is not an AAA title, and we know that human character modelling and facial expressions are not the strong point of lower-budget games. It is no different here. The in-game characters are excellent, but you can notice the limitations during the cutscenes. One thing that helps is that the characters do not have an entirely realistic design, you know, with wrinkles, pores and all that stuff found in the latest “great” games. The art direction, atmosphere, and the game itself are fun enough that this sort of thing does not become a problem.
The gameplay animations are functional across the board. Enemy movement is fluid, and the player character does not disappoint when walking, aiming their weapon or carrying things. The creatures are macabre as they should be, although the game doesn’t offer a particularly large variety of them. One thing I liked, however, is how the appearance of basic enemies changes depending on the setting. In the city, they have one appearance. At the fire station, they wear appropriate clothing. The hotel does the same thing, as does the hospital, the Fish Market, and you get the idea.
As for performance and bugs, it’s hard to say, since some problems can happen to some players and not others. In general, the game does not have any game-breaking bugs. You might get stuck in the corner of a door, and sometimes creatures can get in each other’s way, but I didn’t notice anything major beyond that. There have, however, been complaints about freezes and sudden crashes when running the game at maximum settings. There are also occasional complaints about stuttering.
Gameplay
I remember very well that the weakest part of the first The Sinking City was its combat, and it had quite a few combat sections. It seems Frogwares decided to solve that problem once and for all here, because this new game is certainly driven by combat. You have almost no areas where you can take a breather, apart from the famous safe rooms and a few small sections. In general, the environment is packed with enemies, and because you have to keep going back and forth, you’ll constantly find yourself in combat. Of course, you can choose whether to fight them or run away and save your resources.
This choice is interesting because resources are not plentiful, and you can be sure that you’ll be counting your bullets. A single fight can be stressful enough to make you spend far more than you would like. This does not happen during Boss Fights, where the game gives you ammunition from time to time so you do not run out of anything while fighting the creature. I am not sure what I think about this. On one hand, it prevents you from getting stuck if you have nothing left. At the same time, it feels like poor planning when it comes to the placement of resources, enemies and the Boss itself.
And this brings us to the difficulty. The game can become very hard as you progress, largely because of the number of enemies that start appearing. There are moments when it becomes oppressive. You’re surrounded by creatures, some of which jump around and are difficult to hit, while others spit goo from a distance, on top of the regular enemies. The game has a weak point system, where a spot appears on a creature and you deal more damage by shooting it. The problem is that, besides their erratic movement, it’s very tough to focus on shooting those spots while you are being battered from every direction.
This creates another problem which, to me, is a recurring issue in Survival Horror games: bullet-sponge enemies. You fire a shotgun at one from point-blank range and it simply absorbs the shot and keeps walking. This weakens the experience a little because the enemies don’t feel quite responsive. Sometimes you need three or four consecutive shotgun blasts before the creature even gives the slightest indication that it noticed the 12-gauge being shoved up its backside.
“The Sinking City 2” is divided into chapters, with each chapter taking place in a different setting. Once you leave one, you cannot return to the previous area, so you need to explore everything you can before moving on. Each section follows the same structure: some open areas, some locked locations and a few puzzles to solve. You have a map that helps with navigation, showing unvisited locations, items you’ve not picked up and doors that are still locked. Standard Survival Horror stuff. Exploration rewards you with more resources, as well as keys for special boxes containing weapon parts and points for upgrading the character’s skill tree.
The upgrades are quite simplified. You’re much more concerned with managing your resources and inventory, with increasing your inventory being the only truly relevant upgrade. The rest could honestly have been left out. The parts you add to your weapons are interesting, but once again, I feel they have little impact considering the overall scope of the game.
Another thing the game uses to help you progress is a system similar to the first game, where you cross-reference information from documents like a detective. At certain points, this is necessary to let you use a password, for example.
With all of this, a first playthrough will probably take around 10 hours, perhaps more, with you getting lost, considering your options, saving resources, solving puzzles and so on. A more direct playthrough might take around 6 to 7 hours. That is a good length for a Survival Horror game, which can become bloated and repetitive after the halfway point.
Pros
- Good atmosphere and environments
- Functional combat, sometimes challenging
- Engaging narrative and good characters
- Above-average survival horror
- Voice acting
Cons
- Repetitive gameplay
- Weaker facial expressions
- Sound effects do not stand out much
- Some performance issues (consider the release date)
Is The Sinking City 2 Worth Playing?
In every way possible, yes. “The Sinking City 2” is a game that is well worth playing, especially for anyone who loves Survival Horror games with keys to find, doors to unlock, documents to collect and puzzles to solve, as well as anyone who enjoys the Lovecraft universe or a good horror game.
