Today, during the Xbox Partner event, developer Frogwares announced The Sinking City 2, a sequel to their most successful IP which they finally now own and control entirely.
The Sinking City 2 is a survival-horror game, set in Lovecraftian 1920s United States. It takes place in the infamous city Arkham, now plagued by a supernatural flood that has brought decay and Eldritch monsters to its streets.
In the game, players will fight nightmarish abominations, explore a rotting city as the rising waters change the landscape, and discover what dark mysteries brought you to this forsaken place.
The sequel will feature a new, stand-alone story separate from the one told in the original game.
Game Features:
- Fight to Survive: Use an arsenal of 1920s-inspired firearms and melee weapons to fight against Eldritch-inspired admonitions.
- Explore The Decaying City of Arkham: A semi-open world of decaying mansions, flooded markets, and abandoned hospitals. As you progress the flood waters will rise, changing the layout of locations when you return.
- Find and Use What You Can: Scrounge for limited resources and balance a finite inventory as you decide what to bring and what to leave behind.
- Choose to Investigate Further: Solve optional puzzles that let you investigate your surroundings deeper to uncover secrets, alternate options, and more lore.
- A Twisted Lovecraftian Tale: Experience a morally grey and captivating story set around the Lovecraft mythos of cults, mutant creatures, and incomprehensible gods.
With The Sinking City 2, Frogwares hopes to pivot the studio to a “horror-first” focus with gameplay primarily built around combat, exploration, and its Lovecraftian setting + story. The team has also finally been able to move over to Unreal Engine 5 to utilize the technological leaps and bounds the engine is offering developers.
Regarding their updated strategy, Publishing Director at Frogwares, Sergiy Oganesyan said:
The original Sinking City is still one of our most successful titles, most likely because of stronger horror genre leanings and setting. We created quite a few detective adventures in the past, so now we’re going to mix things up to keep doing what people love about us – meaning story-rich experiences – while still being able to evolve. It’s exciting but at the same time risky.
We’re a totally independent studio that for the past 24 years has become known for detective games. But we need to start taking bolder moves. The industry is changing around us and we want to secure the studio’s future.
In addition to strong storytelling, The Sinking City 2 will have Frogwares’ other hallmark feature – the ability to be a cunning detective. However, this time around the feature will be entirely optional. Players can decide when and where to put on their sleuthing caps to unveil new secrets, lore, ways to progress, etc.
Executive Producer, Frogwares, Denys Chebotarov, elaborated on this concept, saying:
We want investigation to be a beneficial part of the game but just for those who want it, offering tangible gameplay bonuses and eureka moments without it being a requirement to progress. By taking time to piece together clues, you’ll arm yourself with more knowledge and awareness of your options vs just coming across them by chance.
We are also doing this for our existing fans who have come to love this feature from us, so they don’t feel left out. For those not keen on combat and survival-horror mechanics, we will also have various accessibility features to help.
As Ukraine is still in a state of war, Frogwares has decided to turn to Kickstarter again to create a safety net for the studio as well as help secure some additional features for the game.
Wael Amr, CEO, Frogwares, said:
At this stage, we have learned and adapted to our reality but the ongoing war adds an ominous layer of uncertainty, and the additional funds will help us deal with potential disruptions on top of helping fund various extra features we would love to implement.
Our previous game, Sherlock Holmes The Awakened, was fully developed and released during the war. Through Kickstarter and our supporters, we built ourselves a safety net that saved us more than once. From power cuts as our electrical infrastructure was targeted for months to the need for team members to relocate at very short notice, this financial safety net proved invaluable to us. So we need to do the same now with The Sinking City 2 as this game is vastly bigger and more complex.
The campaign is expected to launch soon, but for now, fans can sign up to be informed by Kickstarter once the campaign goes live.
The Sinking City 2 is coming to PC, PS5, and XBX in 2025.
You can view the world premiere trailer for the game below.
