The Sinking City Reviews
With a distinct lack of hand holding, in-depth investigative mechanics, and a solid mix of open world design with mythos monsters, The Sinking City is the standard for Lovecraftian games.
Without a doubt, The Sinking City is the best Lovecraft game we’ve ever seen. It’s still not a perfect title—for some reason, none are—but it’s a damn fun time as a Lovecraftian private eye. Hopefully, Frogwares will follow up with another Lovecraft title with stronger combat. But if investigating eldritch horrors in an entirely unique game world is what you’re after, you need to play this despite its flaws.
The Sinking City is an incredibly ambitious open world detective title which punches way above its weight thanks to various refreshing mechanics, an engaging narrative and some impressively alluring world design. Combat woes, a rigid open world and numerous technical issues unfortunately let what's otherwise a great game down. However, The Sinking City is still well worth a look.
There are some flaws in Sinking City, but there is plenty of clever content to keep the player interested.
A promising premise, drowned by its menacing ambition.
The Sinking City is one of the best Lovecraft-inspired games available and, despite some slightly awkward controls in places, the game is brilliantly crafted. Fans of horror will love its atmosphere and those who enjoy investigative games will quickly become absorbed in the depth offered by the gameplay. Those who loved L.A. Noire or Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem, and players of the tabletop game, should definitely give thought to picking this title up.
The Sinking City nearly drowns in its amazing atmosphere and the investigative work, especially when it comes to the main story, is fantastic. However, Frogware’s ambitious attempt at combining an investigation game with an open world simply doesn’t work as well as it could have. Sidequests are mostly uninteresting and with a big part of the game focused on collecting scarce resources from infested zones, the clunky combat doesn’t help.
Unfortunately, the negative aspects in The Sinking City outweigh the positive ones: lackluster graphics, bug-ridden NPCs and a combat system that fails to deliver. But if you can dismiss all this, you will be in for a great action adventure and the most detailed lovecraft game world to date. It's still a must play for every fan of eldritch horrors and detective games!
Review in German | Read full review
The Sinking City provides a compelling story, gorgeous art, and genuine scares, but
The Sinking City is obviously not a complete open-world action adventure title, but it offers enough to keep you engaged with some solid story and atmosphere, great characters, wonderful modeling of the city of Oakmont, and that strange feeling that you would expect from H.P. Lovecraft works. If you can skip past some of the game's shortcomings, you'll get to experience something that you never did before.
Review in Persian | Read full review
Frogwares has created an interesting and absorbing world of horror, and it’s deliciously rich in story and world-building. The sanity system works well, throwing some horrific visions at you, and capturing a feeling of nightmarish helplessness. Yes, it comes with some signature flaws too, but The Sinking City is a fine horror game and an engrossing detective RPG.
The Sinking City feels more like it is based on a Sherlock Holmes novel rather than a game inspired by H. P. Lovecraft's work. The part of the story focusing on supernatural elements is pretty weak, but side-quests more than make up for it. This game has a very strong “one more place to visit” or “one more conversation” vibe. It’s clunky but effective.
Review in Polish | Read full review
The ambitious, fascinating yet flawed The Sinking City stablish itself as the new Lovecraftian title to look at. A joyful horror theme park that encourages you to fall in love with the gentle touch of the tentacle.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
The Sinking City took a while to get its hooks into me and, once I got past some of it’s issues, especially the combat, I found myself thoroughly enthralled by its compelling narrative, exploration and puzzle solving gameplay.
The Sinking City provides top-tier gameplay in the psychological horror genre, and brilliantly blends beautiful surroundings with a terrifyingly haunting and mysterious presence. Horror fans, especially, will want to pick this up at their earliest convenience.
Overall, as much as I adore the story and atmosphere of The Sinking City, it definitely feels like a budget title at times. If you can get past the weak combat, harmless jank, and enjoy a solid detective experience that won't hold your hand and throw tough choices your way, you shouldn't pass up on it. Even more so if you're a fan of Lovecraft. Because as the Old Ones were, the Old Ones are, and the Old Ones shall be and that's a good enough reason for me!
The Sinking City is well worth playing for the initial rhythm of its casework and the freshness of its setting, but its mechanics, like its mystery, end up flooded.
It's very hard to call The Sinking City a "good game," all things considered, but it was definitely a game worth making. Keep an eye out for future improvements and hopefully someday it'll be a game worth playing.