The Sinking City 2 PS5 Review. Over the last few years, I’ve grown to love cosmic horror. Looming inevitability and needing to face it is so relatable. That’s why in 2023 I jumped on the opportunity to review Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened. For whatever reason, I didn’t realize until AFTER I finished The Sinking City 2 that this game and Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened were made by the same development team, Frogwares.
The Sinking City 2 is also purported to be a standalone story that can be enjoyed without having played the first one. Since I have not played the first Sinking City, I will be reviewing this game with that in mind.
The Sinking City 2 Review (PS5) – A Well-Realised Amalgamation Of Different Beloved Inspirations
The New Normal
The introduction to the game sees you take on the role of Calvin Rafferty. A botched ritual has left your partner and beloved, Faye Bennett, in a comatose state. To boot, the streets of fictional Arkham, England, now lay under a slowly-rising flood, while the remaining residents make the final push to evacuate the city. You won’t leave until you find a way to revive Faye back to her normal state. This means that you also need to contend with the Slither, the worm-like creatures that arrived with the flood, as they take control of the remaining dead.
Right from the jump, The Sinking City 2 plays its Resident Evil inspirations very clearly. Just like the modern Resident Evil titles, The Sinking City 2 follows a similar formula of exploration and puzzle solving. The biggest difference is a feature that was also used in Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened, where you take the clues you find and manually connect them.
While the game does visually identify what puzzle each clue is associated with, it still leaves the conclusion for you to discover. It doesn’t automatically solve the puzzle for you. This could be as simple as each clue saying a single digit on a safe code, or it could include a verse from a song that you need to interpret. This execution makes it easier to organize your thoughts while still needing to think for yourself.
Drawing Very Clear Comparisons
You also get interactive items as puzzles. Here, though, the amount of interaction with each item is substantial, with a lot of rotating and finding the interaction points in order to progress. I just ate these up every time they popped up. They don’t come up often, but I loved them every single time. They’re not overtly challenging, but the tangible need to interact with the items is what makes it so good.
Just like in Resident Evil, this game takes you to a handful of focused open areas to explore, sprinkling in some Metroidvania elements when it comes to shortcuts. Exploration is also made more favorable by using the same type of color-coated map where a room marked red still holds something for you to find and blue means you found everything.
Due in part to the inevitable comparisons to Resident Evil, the combat experience of The Sinking City 2 is its weaker point. In general, gunshots don’t feel as impactful, and gore animations look quite muted and bareboned. It might not be as chunky or satisfying as its inspiration, but combat works well albeit presents itself as a budget version of the Resident Evil combat. You know your way around a gun, and you can melee and stomp enemies as you go. Still, you can’t just do devastating punches or have crazy-good accuracy by default. You also play as a person who works at a university who also dabbles in the occult.
Running With Inspirations
That’s where the Nightshade Mask comes in. As you solve mysteries, you gain skill points. Using these points, you unlock different perks that you then equip to the mask. The mask includes three potential slots for these perks, with only the first slot available right away. This means you also need to use these points to unlock the other two slots. Depending on difficulty, you need to choose between prioritizing perk unlocks or the ability to equip more perks. Either way, you need to play through the story several times in order to unlock all perks.
The Slither also evokes Resident Evil vibes simply because the worms that accompany the flood inhabit and control the bodies of the dead. Enemies come in many varieties of human, but most of the enemies you face are humanoid. They even have bulbous glowing weak points for you to shoot. What makes these enemies tricky is that the worms leave defeated humanoids and move to find other ones. In fact, if you don’t stomp out the worms, they can inhabit the bodies that you have already defeated.
Also, each area comes with at least one unique Eldritchian enemy. These serve as the real enemy variety throughout the game. There’s even one that spontaneously appears and stalks you. I’ve played a lot of games in my life, and not often have I vocally proclaimed “What the hell is that?” as often as I did while playing The Sinking City 2. The design work for these Eldritch enemies is top notch and evocative.
Playing To Its Strengths
So far, most of what I’ve said details how much The Sinking City 2 is like the modern Resident Evil games. One distinct area where it differs is in its style of writing. In particular, the Lovecraftian elements are treated more like characters than they are fan service. What I mean is that this scenario has Eldritch horrors doing their thing, but the story still focuses on Calvin and Faye. The couple just mixed themselves up into this whole fiasco.
The Sinking City 2 focuses more on personal character interactions in quiet moments. This gives you a better feel for who the characters are as people. This approach is further complemented by the natural flow of dialogue as well as the excellent deliveries from all of the voice actors.
The actors for Calvin and Faye steal the show and exhibit wonderful chemistry together. With that said, the side characters also deliver. None of the side characters stick around for too long in terms of game time, but they are incredibly memorable both in how they look and how they act. The facial capture is a great addition as well. It’s not to the same level as AAA games, but it doesn’t need to be to do the job well. Subtleties are still there, and they add so much to each interaction. I especially love Ma Fishface.
Putting “Love” in “Lovecraft”
The Sinking City 2 takes a lot of obvious gameplay inspirations from the greats. While that part of the game isn’t original, it doesn’t need to be. Don’t mess with success. It might not have the same level of visual budget, but it still works and plays just as well. Besides, the story, writing, and setting all make The Sinking City 2 a must-play survival horror game. Combine that with what makes the modern Resident Evil games popular, and you have a great recipe for success.
Review code kindly provided by publisher.