The Sinking City

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.

It’s not a particularly pleasant experience—but it is uncompromisingly captivating.

I had also hoped for a thrilling thriller and that's exactly what I got.

The Sinking City struggles under the weight of its ambition, but it’s compelling mysteries and horrific world make it a compelling journey.

There is so much to enjoy about the title that one can overlook the various combat blunders and need of day-one patches. Having received early access to the title for this review, The Sinking City has some optimization bugs to work out, but that doesn't impact the quality of the title (in the digital age, everything gets a day-one patch anyway). Despite these shortcomings, the title is a must-play for fans of detective thrillers, puzzle-solving, and cosmic horror. Dive into The Sinking City and welcome our Cthulhu overlords with open arms.

What makes The Sinking City unique is that it really feels like you’re investigating while struggling with hallucinations and madness as you step foot inside the world of Cthulhu mythos. If that sounds like your cup of tea, definitely give it a chance. However, after you get used to the gameplay you will notice that as a game, The Sinking City feels like too much of the same. An open-world design was not the ideal direction to take for this developer specialized in a specific genre.

When it comes to detective games, The Sinking City features some of the best gameplay that I've ever experienced in the genre. That being said, it could definitely use a lot more fine-tuning to iron out its less desirable qualities.

Besides the primitive battle system and the technical shortcomings, The Sinking City is a solid investigation experience with a compelling story that provides hours of case solving.

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.

Even if it doesn’t succeed at everything it’s trying, The Sinking City has a lot of personality. The investigation isn’t as free as we were promised it would be, and the fighting are weak. But it’s a strong game with good writing.

Despite all of its various shortcomings, The Sinking City still gets a lot right, and it kept me coming back. I became determined to solve the cases, discover the hidden areas of Oakmont, unlock the additional in-game costumes, and just explore. Even though the gameplay stumbles often, for me there was still enough here in terms of story and content, to keep going, and I enjoyed myself more oft than not. Ultimately, I think that with some patching, The Sinking City could really be a stand out title, easily one of or the best AA games this year. But as it plays now, The Sinking City is fairly rough around the edges and might will test your patience and sense of leniency for its shortcomings.

The Sinking City is a faithful adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft´s universe, and has some interesting mechanics, but the game has many technical flaws and the open world structure feels "empty".

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.

The Sinking City shows a real lack of polish but the investigations provide a likeable adventure. I found cases to be engrossing and the politics of Oakmont, whilst well-travelled and strictly Lovecraftian, give the city a sense of place. The combat is cumbersome but those keen on the sleuthing might be encouraged to tolerate it.

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.

The Sinking City is a captivating detective undertaking that dives into the hauntings of H.P. Lovecraft with a compelling narrative that is sure to question your viewpoint as well as reality itself. If you can look past its presentational shortcomings and mediocre combat system, the plight of private eye Charles Reed is one worth seeing for yourself.

The Sinking City is a fun game, but to really enjoy it there is a lot you'll have to put up with. Maybe that will be solved in the future, but at the moment the only thing that really saves this game is the amazing influence of Lovecraft.

When The Sinking City focuses on its every Lovecrafian tale and lets you play the paranormal sleuth, it gets under your skin and manages to keep you hooked. As soon as it turns into a survival horror game with shooting mechanics, however, the result is bad enough to make you want to stop playing all together.

Frogwares shows that it really knows the Lovecraft universe and it dares to make it their own thing. As a game, The Sinking City, unfortunately, is not that strong.

The Sinking City is a flawed gem, marred with technical issues and repetitive gameplay. The interesting worldbuilding and story elements are insufficient to carry the game in the face of poorly applied mechanics. The Sinking City could have benefited from an additional delay and a tighter game play loop.

Weaves Lovecraftian mythos into an interesting setting. But it frequently veers into being dull and repetitive, which isn’t what you want from dreamlike horror. [Issue#165, p.89]

The SInking City is the new game from Frogwares where you play as a detective to discover the origin of your own paranoia.

The intrigues that play out between its often bizarre but always interesting characters and factions, and underwater sequences that see Reed in a 1920s diving suit, are highly absorbing. Its narrative puts the boot into religious cults, and Lovecraft would surely not have approved of its ruminations on racism. It also tackles Depression-era deprivation, which is pretty apposite in today’s world. The Sinking City is original, commendably thought-provoking and deliciously gothic, but aspects of it feel either half-finished or ill thought-out. Had it pruned just a little of its ambition, it could have had more than cult appeal.

The Sinking City is a thoughtful take on the source material, but is nearly destroyed by the poorly-executed open world and actions sequences. The investigations themselves are well-structured and easy to maneuver, but the long treks between, and the downtime that comes with them, is unnecessary. Still, if you're a Lovecraft fan or a fan of Frogwares' Sherlock Holmes titles, it's well worth a play for being an intriguing, and more authentic take on Lovecraft than most manage.

Those invested in the Cthulhu mythos might be interested in the tale found in The Sinking City, but most others should wait until the game is patched.

The Sinking City proposes good ideas terribly badly executed. After the initial hours we have a monotonous game which is lacking in good shooter mechanics and narrative.

The design of the monsters and the Innsmouthers are fantastic and the world building is creepy and fun. However, The Sinking City gets hamstrung by an overall chunkiness it doesn’t quite recover from. It’s hard to stay invested when combat is terrible and glitches and crashes ruin pacing and progression. This is a game demands a lot of patience and tolerance.

There simply is no digital adventure that can capture the unique horror of H.P. Lovecraft. The Sinking City tries hard, but ultimately finds its demise.

I would recommend this game only to true Lovecraft’s fans. Follow the story and don’t step aside – otherwise, due to a large number of side quests, you may completely lose the thread of the story. You won’t find interesting gameplay mechanics, gloomy atmosphere or something like that in this game. All I managed to find was a simple detective story with elements of mysticism and a bunch of controversial design solutions. I definitely do not advise you to spend money on The Sinking City.

The Sinking City is a perfectly acceptable detective game that gets bogged down by mediocre open-world adventure. While I respect Frogwares’ ambition to explore new areas, with results this shoddy, they should have stuck to what worked. Without tacking on hours of worthless travel and open-world nonsense, Sinking City would have been a high-quality cosmic horror mystery. In its current form, I can’t recommend anyone but the most devoted Lovecraft fans make the journey to Oakmont.

For what seems meant to be a horror game about piecing together clues and cobbling together what’s left of your sanity, long stretches of The Sinking City are inordinately concerned with killing the shit out of some monsters as a sort of Chosen One.

While the characters in The Sinking City may be more concerned with the murky waters flooding their homes, players will find themselves neck-deep in a flood of technical problems and puzzling game design choices. Anyone looking for a quality Lovecraftian horror game won’t find it here, which is disappointing as The Sinking City was one of the most exciting horror games showcased at E3 2019.

The Sinking City's promise of a world that never holds your hand is exciting, but the game ultimately falls short of its lofty goal. While the story and characters are interesting, the detective work quickly grows dull and the shooting mechanics are underwhelming at best.