The Sinking City Reviews
The Sinking City is a great game for fans of Lovecraftian horror and delivers some stellar quest writing but unfortunately stumbles due to overused and uninspired mechanics, a bland protagonist and general lack of life
Despite featuring elements from many video games that I love, The Sinking City still fell flat for me.
The latest game to adapt Lovecraft’s fiction does so with a critical eye and some thrilling detective gameplay.
Some issues hold me back from giving The Sinking City full marks, but I still recommend it. Whether you're a fan of Lovecraft, horror in general, or even a good old mystery, you may get a lot out of Frogware's latest. Just beware the call of Cthulhu.
A captivating detective story in a believable game world paired with the horror of H.P. Lovecraft and technical problems.
Review in German | Read full review
Worse than the sheer tedium of shooting is the effect it has on the game's atmosphere.
You'll rise from the murky depths of The Sinking City wondering whether you should have bothered getting wet in the first place.
I'm not sure if it's worth the $60 pricetag, but if you're a Mythos fan, you should definitely pick it up when it's on sale.
The investigative open world of Frogwares is an ambitious game, characterized by an excellent atmosphere but by imperfect gameplay.
Review in Italian | Read full review
The Sinking City is a near-miss, and a unique foray into surivival horror. It doesn’t coddle you, and it certainly doesn’t do any hand-holding, which makes it a unique detective outing let down in its execution by a number of tiny flaws.
The SInking City Is a pretty good adventure game, with a good universe, but the open world feature is annoying and the game suffers from multiple graphic diseases.
Review in French | 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 both sinks and swims. Delivering a good mystery within a picturesque yet grotesque hellscape, while also held back by visual ramifications and tricky combat engagements.
Rough but still great
The Sinking City is an intriguing idea weighed down by frustrating bugs, unpolished game mechanics, and a lackluster narrative.
While it's carried over its fair share of clunky elements in the transition to Nintendo's console, The Sinking City on Nintendo Switch is a fully-featured and mostly well-optimised port. The mixture of psychological horror and detective skills is a positive step beyond the developer's previous work on Sherlock Holmes titles, and while its sanity mechanic doesn't quite hold up to the likes of Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem, and it's not without bugs, it offers an enjoyable if not particularly scary descent into madness and delirium.
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.
The Sinking City is a playable version of a Lovecraftian detective horror story and with all the mystery solving and investigation going on, this has (almost) all the conditions to satisfy those who enjoy dark, sombre and terrifying environments and an adventure component. The Sinking City does less well on its control system, which feels too removed and unnatural, as well as on some graphic performance issues but those looking for a captivating and chilling experience, this is the right option to go for.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Frogwares is a master in mystery. While their pedigree is mostly rooted in Sherlock Holmes, this foray into Lovecraftian horror is an admirable effort made even better by the technology of the PS5. Loading times are vastly improved on The Sinking City PS5, and the game looks better than it ever has before thanks to improved textures, lighting, and resolution. This version is also free of Frogwares' publisher drama with Nacon, and paints a pretty exciting picture for what the developer can do with mystery games on the PS5.