The Sinking City Reviews

The Sinking City is ranked in the 40th percentile of games scored on OpenCritic.
GameSpot
Top Critic
3 / 10
Jun 26, 2019

Clumsy design, tedious storytelling, and often game-breaking technical limitations sap The Sinking City of any real terror or intrigue.

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4 / 10.0
Sep 17, 2019

It’s no pleasure to be so critical of a title which innovates on the third person adventure genre while offering an engaging plot. The Sinking City was clearly created with a strong vision in mind, and its failings are largely technical. There is much to love, and I will be going back to experience more of the story, but given the current state of the Switch port, I cannot recommend it. Wait to see if Frogwares release a patch before sinking any time into this one. I’m giving it the Thumb Culture Bronze award.

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40 / 100
Sep 18, 2019

The Sinking City is the type of game that will appeal only to the most hardcore of H.P. Lovecraft, or noir fiction fans. Everyone else will be left wondering how so much could go so wrong in what really is an excellent idea for a game.

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Jun 26, 2019

The Sinking City is yet another Lovecraftian horror game that fails to live up to expectations, largely thanks to a flood of technical issues and tedious gameplay.

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5 / 10
Jul 2, 2019

It could have been a great game if it gave us more control over the gameplay and the city we are exploring, a victim of the tiresome neediness to make everything an open world game, where more is always better. With a few cuts here and there, and a more focused campaign, The Sinking City could be a horror classic, but in this state, with all this bugs, it belongs only to the sea.

Review in Portuguese | Read full review

5 / 10
Jul 13, 2019

The Sinking City feels like a deliberate failure. There's no sign of a struggle to overcome the challenges of game design and the game fails to innovate or feel unique. Trodding through this rotten world, which is wrought with imperfections, ravaged by age-old bugs and an atmosphere that fails to convey the  horror it aims for. The Sinking City fails to look Call of Cthulhu in the eye, let alone match Lovecraft's tales of fear and madness.

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5 / 10.0
Jun 27, 2019

The Sinking City is an overpriced technical mess full of awkward mechanics but with a decent plot.

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5 / 10
Jun 25, 2019

The game has so much potential to be something really quite special. The setting and the characters, the Lovecraft Cthulhu-inspired imagination of the world of Oakmont and Charles Reed’s search for his own sanity is really quite interesting. There’s definitely something here, it just all feels half-baked. Each critical narrative moment should have the power to knock the player on the ass falls flat, leaving you wanting more but it never arriving.

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5 / 10.0
Jun 25, 2019

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.

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5 / 10.0
Apr 8, 2020

No matter how frustrating the combat became or how broken the environments turned out to be, I loved doing case work and figuring out obscure deaths or uncovering secret organizations within this peculiar game world. Given all the downsides, this is a game that is difficult to recommend, especially at full price.

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5 / 10.0
Sep 17, 2019

It does some interesting things such as using bullets for currency, causing the player to have to weigh the options of fleeing from or killing a threat. The sanity effects caused by being in disturbing situations or using Reed's investigation abilities too much are cheesy but mainly unobtrusive and add a charm to the game I did not expect. Nonetheless, even with these fun aspects, the significant technical problems and boring traversal of Oakmont make me hesitate to suggest the Switch be your chosen platform for visiting this doomed town.

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2.5 / 5.0
Jun 29, 2019

The Sinking City will test your patience throughout its interesting story, its potential was ruined by bad execution. Overall, the game looked like it belongs to the old gen

Review in Arabic | Read full review

5 / 10
Jul 9, 2019

The Sinking City is an ambitious attempt to bring a fresh take to the world of Lovecraft. If you're an unabashed fan of the lore, or don't mind repetitive gameplay, you'll enjoy what's on offer here. Otherwise, you'll probably end up going slowly mad.

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Jun 26, 2019

You'll rise from the murky depths of The Sinking City wondering whether you should have bothered getting wet in the first place.

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Jun 26, 2019

Worse than the sheer tedium of shooting is the effect it has on the game's atmosphere.

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50 / 100
Sep 12, 2019

After looking at all the evidence, I must say I almost enjoyed The Sinking City. There is a solid game here buried under technical problems and tedium. The interesting characters and quirky protagonist were almost enough to keep me interested, but sloppy combat and plentiful walking eventually wore me down. This is a paranormal call I recommend walking away from.

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5 / 10
Jun 25, 2019

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.

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Jun 25, 2019

The Sinking City's engrossing premise is ultimately betrayed by counterintuitive systems and bleak monotony.

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5.5 / 10.0
Jul 12, 2019

The Sinking City is not a great game, but it was one that I enjoyed in-spite of that fact. For the unfamiliar, The Sinking City is a detective-mystery...

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5.5 / 10.0
Sep 19, 2019

The Sinking City features a genuinely interesting story and setting but is let down by performance issues and very poor combat controls. Traversing the city is often a chore and will have you hitting more dead-ends than a night of speed-dating. The Switch port is the worst way to experience the game and I can only recommend it to the most die-hard Lovecraft fans.

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