After finding success with cult hit The Sinking City, Frogwares is trying a more traditional survival horror approach with The Sinking City 2.
See whether this was the right call with our review…
The Sinking City 2 Review
Following the story of Calvin Rafertty and Faye Bennet, The Sinking City 2 follows this pair’s journey to track down weird and ancient artifacts. One such artifact is the Book of Dreaming, with the two of them looking to use it to contact a god.
Sounds simple, right?
One failed ritual later, Calvin is left wondering what happened after Faye is left in a comatose state. With one’s memory hazy and the surrounding city literally sinking (it’s in the name), Calvin seeks to find another book for yet another ritual.
This isn’t easy; the city is being evacuated, multiple gates are down, and weird worms are all over. On your way to the library, Calvin will fight off dead humans taken over by these worms. From there, The Sinking City 2 becomes survival horror as players manage inventory, solve puzzles, kill enemies and bosses, and save one’s lover.
The original release felt like a much larger open-world-style game. While The Sinking City 2 is still open, it is far more managed with less downtime on foot. This works in its favor, as its claustrophobic makes combat much more tense. While exploring the city and finding secrets is still enjoyable, there was more running from enemies in The Sinking City 2.
However, the combat itself of The Sinking City 2 could use refinement. A recent review of mine spoke about importance of impact – the feel of an attack in a video game.
The guns in The Sinking City 2 feel lackluster, never providing that satisfying pop. Even with an upgraded shotgun, the impact never felt right. It does a ton of damage, sure, but it lacked that impact. That being said, both the melee and head stomping felt solid.
A survival horror game at its core, bullets and healing are very limited in The Sinking City 2. Enemies normally have a weak spot that can be exploited by shooting it – failure to do so burns through ammo.
The right items allow for crafting additional bullets and heals, but its official Tips section mentions players should run often.
Starting The Sinking City 2 by shooting and killing everything, I constantly ran out of ammo. However, when picking my battles and shots, I go a lot further and stacked with everything I eventually needed.
When not in combat or exploring, The Sinking City 2 features plenty of puzzles to solve.
Early on, most involve finding an item and bringing it back – puzzle solved.
Later on, more intricate puzzles are introduced that will have players stopping, thinking, and even reading.
When finding clues, players can pin them together to create a sequence. For instance, an early puzzle required finding a date to open a lock. The date was found, but a note was required that mentioned five needed to be added to the year.
While a simple system, it works for The Sinking City 2.
The Sinking City 2 features almost no inventory space to start, exacerbated with some items taking multiple slots. Players can upgrade this inventory system by finding secrets and opening special chests, but items still had to be sacrificed. It proved to be a major annoyance early on.
Unfortunately, The Sinking City 2 also features some technical issues as of this writing.
When standing still and moving slowly, the game runs great. However, any kind of running or fast camera movements in The Sinking City 2 lead to frequent frame dips.
When in combat trying to take out multiple enemies, this provides unneeded additional stress that happens frequently. A few crashes also occurred during the review peiod.
This review of The Sinking City 2 was done on a base PlayStation 5, and could very well provide a smoother experience on either the PlayStation 5 Pro or the PC.
While there is something special brewing in The Sinking City 2, the development team simply needed more time with this release. Even the most diehard of Lovecraftian fans best wait for a few patches before checking this one out.
The Sinking City 2 Review
Reviewed On: PlayStation 5 (A digital code was provided)
Release Date: August 18, 2026
Platforms: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, PC (via Steam)
Developer: Frogwares
Publisher: Frogwares
Aggregate Scores: Metacritic / OpenCritic
Review Policy | Scoring Policy | Meet the Reviewer
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