How The Sinking City 2 Shifts to Survival Horror While Keeping Its Investigation Roots
Summary
- The Sinking City 2 is available now on XBOX Series X|S.
- Sequel to 2019’s The Sinking City developed by Frogwares, it is a Lovecraftian survival horror game set in an otherworldly 1920s Arkham.
- Read how the developers expanded the open-world investigative foundation of the first game to encompass more exploration, combat and horror.
Arkham is flooded, and the things that survived the flood are still using the bodies of the people who didn’t.
The Sinking City 2 is a Lovecraftian survival horror game set in an otherworldly version of the 1920s United States. The first game was an open world detective adventure with horror around the edges. The sequel puts exploration, pacing and combat at the center to make sure it plays, looks and feels better than before.
Here are five things we did differently, and why.
Focused Survival Horror
The Sinking City 2 offers a hallmark survival horror experience: a door that won’t open, a hallway you’ve walked twice that connects to a room you’ve never seen, or a box with a new weapon upgrade you can’t unlock just yet.
The game takes place across several carefully built locations – the streets of Arkham, Akeley Memorial Hospital, the Fish Market and more – each designed as a layered mystery to untangle.
Leaving the open world behind meant we could focus on putting something in every room worth finding: a story, a secret, or a monster.
Investigation That Rewards Exploring
Take Redemption Church. You came to open the sluice blocking your boat. But there’s a trail of clues, and following it will introduce you to an otherworldly anomaly that would very much like to get inside your head, both figuratively and literally.
That’s the shift. In the first game, investigation was the road – miss a clue and the story simply stopped. In the sequel it runs alongside exploration, instead of gating it. Arkham is full of mysteries you’re never required to solve, and solving them is how you come out the other side better armed: an extra inventory slot, a new talent, a new barrel for your trusty handgun you’d otherwise never have found.
Horrors Take the Spotlight
We want combat to be up to survival horror standards, so enemies have been designed to match our vision. You’ll face numerous types of monsters, each with its own design and behavior. To name just a few:
Slither Worms and Abominations are colonies of deep-sea parasites piloting the remains of Arkham citizens who died during the flood. Imagine dislocated shoulders, tangled legs, limbs snapping out at wrong angles.
The Stygian Harvester is small, fragile, and built entirely around ambush. It dodges, breaks off, and flees the moment it takes pressure, so chasing one is usually how you walk into the other three.
Then there’s the mini-boss-tier Acheronian Juggernaut – several bodies fused into one mass, with six arms, six legs, and a maw running from head to torso that can swallow a person whole and hold them there. We kept the silhouette from the first game and rebuilt its behavior and attack set from the ground up. It’s slow, but it turns any enclosed space into a problem you solve with positioning rather than damage.
The list goes on: Lethian Revenants, Deep Ones, the Shadow and more. But we’d rather you discover them on your own and come up with your own tactics to defeat them.
Speaking of tactics – Calvin can dodge, punch and stomp, which is especially useful if you’d rather the Slither worms didn’t repossess another corpse while you look away. There are also multiple weapon upgrades and talents that often synergize with each other – stacking damage against the Slither’s weak points, for example, and turning the fight into a literal bloodbath.
Mastering Calvin’s toolset is essential if you want to kill monsters in a smarter, faster and flashier way. Ammo is scarce and monsters are tough, so explore your options and find what works best.
A Story of Love and Sacrifice
The Sinking City 2 is about two people and what they’re willing to do to each other, and for each other. Calvin and Faye’s story deals in devotion, self-sacrifice, loneliness and the suspicion that none of it will matter. It puts you in situations where the decent thing and the survivable thing are not the same, and leaves the choice with you.
It’s also an entirely new story. Charles Reed’s ended with the first game, and deliberately so – there’s no canonical ending, because that game was always about your moral choices. You don’t need to have played it to follow Calvin and Faye.
Welcome to Arkham
We’re thrilled to say that The Sinking City 2 is out now on XBOX Series X|S! Getting here has been quite a journey. Making a game is hard enough under normal circumstances – doing it with a team in Ukraine while a war continues around us brought challenges we could never have planned for. There were struggles along the way, but seeing the game finally in players’ hands makes us immensely proud of what we’ve built.
Thank you so much for reading, and we hope to see you in the flood!
The Sinking City 2 – Premium Edition Pre-Order
Frogwares
Pre-order The Sinking City 2 – Premium Edition now to get the base game, 24-hour early unlock, the Chthonic Arsenal, the Arkham Field Kit, and The Holloway Manor: a haunted mansion story mission with an optional ritual investigation. Finish it to bring the “Bucking Bronco” revolver into your main game.
Face Arkham in style. Wield the Chthonic Arsenal: the “Shale Mary” handgun, the “Breakwater” shotgun, and the “Tektite Tommy” SMG, each with its own look and features.
On the cliffs outside the city of Arkham, The Holloway Manor keeps its lights low. The house belongs to an old family whose history curdled into occult practice—the kind that Lovecraft would trace through buried lineages and rites that never quite ended. Rooms interlock like a puzzle box, dusty heirlooms open doors, and the house rewards your curiosity with paths you were not meant to find. See the job through, and the “Bucking Bronco” revolver you claim stays with you in the main game.
Premium Edition includes:
– The Sinking City 2 base game
– 24-hour early unlock
– Arkham Field Kit:
– “The Anatomist” outfit
– “The Witness” outfit
– “Heretic Heraldry” outfit
– 3 Dream Essence
– Resource Pack
– The Holloway Manor side mission:
– Optional investigation
– “Bucking Bronco” revolver
– “Kane’s Hefty Barrel” attachment
– “Kane’s Wrapped Grip” attachment
– Revolver ammo recipe
A survival horror in Lovecraft’s world
The Sinking City 2 is a third-person survival horror set in 1920s Arkham. Deliberate, tense, and resource-lean: pressure builds as you push deeper, relief comes in brief refuge, and fear is something you manage. Mind your inventory, take on unnerving puzzles, and double back via unlocked shortcuts for supplies and upgrades.
Arkham, New England
A Roaring ‘20s port city buckling under a supernatural flood. Tide-stained avenues and battered Art Deco. Speakeasies gone dark. Districts feel lived-in and water-worn, with routes by foot and skiff, shortcuts behind collapsed seawalls, and secrets tucked in boarded parlors. You’ll navigate a hospital where science hides its face, a fish market where the merchandise bites back, and descend deep below the city to where eldritch horrors stir.
A rescue with impossible stakes
A ritual gone wrong trapped her soul in the Dreamlands, and now malevolent forces have stolen her body. To rescue the woman you love, you must walk a dangerous path through catastrophe to the source of the flood, her presence always felt but rarely seen.
Fearsome foes
The Slither animate the dead. Deep Ones surge from dark water. Shadows bend space and test nerves. Some fights must be met head-on; others may require a retreat, rearm, and retune of your build in a place of refuge. Or maybe you take on an optional investigation, and return with an upgraded gun.
Investigate at will
Exploration is the key to survival. Read ritual residues, sift through grisly clues, decode journals that shouldn’t exist, and pry at masks that won’t come off. Optional cases never gate progress, but they unlock safer routes, valuable supplies, and upgrades that increase your odds of surviving the next encounter.
Built with uncommon devotion
The Sinking City 2 draws on Frogwares’ detective roots to deliver survival horror that runs deep and hits hard. Shaped by studio obsession and community feedback, it’s a faithful Lovecraft experience: myths made manifest, and the inconceivable fear that results.
The Sinking City 2 – Deluxe Edition Pre-Order
Frogwares
Pre-order The Sinking City 2 – Deluxe Edition now to get the Chthonic Arsenal: the “Shale Mary” handgun, the “Breakwater” shotgun, and the “Tektite Tommy” SMG, each with its own look and features.
The Deluxe Edition includes the base game and the Arkham Field Kit: three outfits for the main character – “The Anatomist,” “The Witness,” and “Heretic Heraldry” – three Dream Essence to learn your first Talent early, and a Resource Pack with a helpful mix of ammo, healing, and crafting items.
A survival horror in Lovecraft’s world
The Sinking City 2 is a third-person survival horror set in 1920s Arkham. Deliberate, tense, and resource-lean: pressure builds as you push deeper, relief comes in brief refuge, and fear is something you manage. Mind your inventory, take on unnerving puzzles, and double back via unlocked shortcuts for supplies and upgrades.
Arkham, New England
A Roaring ’20s port city buckling under a supernatural flood. Tide-stained avenues and battered Art Deco. Speakeasies gone dark. Districts feel lived-in and water-worn, with routes by foot and skiff, shortcuts behind collapsed seawalls, and secrets tucked in boarded parlors. You’ll navigate a hospital where science hides its face, a fish market where the merchandise bites back, and descend deep below the city to where eldritch horrors stir.
A rescue with impossible stakes
A ritual gone wrong trapped her soul in the Dreamlands, and now malevolent forces have stolen her body. To rescue the woman you love, you must walk a dangerous path through catastrophe to the source of the flood, her presence always felt but rarely seen.
Fearsome foes
The Slither animate the dead. Deep Ones surge from dark water. Shadows bend space and test nerves. Some fights must be met head-on; others may require a retreat, rearm, and retune of your build in a place of refuge. Or maybe you take on an optional investigation, and return with an upgraded gun.
Investigate at will
Exploration is the key to survival. Read ritual residues, sift through grisly clues, decode journals that shouldn’t exist, and pry at masks that won’t come off. Optional cases never gate progress, but they unlock safer routes, valuable supplies, and upgrades that increase your odds of surviving the next encounter.
Built with uncommon devotion
The Sinking City 2 draws on Frogwares’ detective roots to deliver survival horror that runs deep and hits hard. Shaped by studio obsession and community feedback, it’s a faithful Lovecraft experience: myths made manifest, and the inconceivable fear that results.
The Sinking City 2 – Pre-Order
Frogwares
Face Arkham in style. Wield the Chthonic Arsenal: the “Shale Mary” handgun, the “Breakwater” shotgun, and the “Tektite Tommy” SMG, each with its own look and features.
A survival horror in Lovecraft’s world
The Sinking City 2 is a third-person survival horror set in 1920s Arkham. Deliberate, tense, and resource-lean: pressure builds as you push deeper, relief comes in brief refuge, and fear is something you manage. Mind your inventory, take on unnerving puzzles, and double back via unlocked shortcuts for supplies and upgrades.
Arkham, New England
A Roaring ‘20s port city buckling under a supernatural flood. Tide-stained avenues and battered Art Deco. Speakeasies gone dark. Districts feel lived-in and water-worn, with routes by foot and skiff, shortcuts behind collapsed seawalls, and secrets tucked in boarded parlors. You’ll navigate a hospital where science hides its face, a fish market where the merchandise bites back, and descend deep below the city to where eldritch horrors stir.
A rescue with impossible stakes
A ritual gone wrong trapped her soul in the Dreamlands, and now malevolent forces have stolen her body. To rescue the woman you love, you must walk a dangerous path through catastrophe to the source of the flood, her presence always felt but rarely seen.
Fearsome foes
The Slither animate the dead. Deep Ones surge from dark water. Shadows bend space and test nerves. Some fights must be met head-on; others may require a retreat, rearm, and retune of your build in a place of refuge. Or maybe you take on an optional investigation, and return with an upgraded gun.
Investigate at will
Exploration is the key to survival. Read ritual residues, sift through grisly clues, decode journals that shouldn’t exist, and pry at masks that won’t come off. Optional cases never gate progress, but they unlock safer routes, valuable supplies, and upgrades that increase your odds of surviving the next encounter.
Built with uncommon devotion
The Sinking City 2 draws on Frogwares’ detective roots to deliver survival horror that runs deep and hits hard. Shaped by studio obsession and community feedback, it’s a faithful Lovecraft experience: myths made manifest, and the inconceivable fear that results.