The Sinking City

 PlayStation 4
User Score
6.8

Mixed or average reviews- based on 209 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 115 out of 209
  2. Mixed: 49 out of 209
  3. Negative: 45 out of 209
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  1. UndeadHippo
    Jul 1, 2019
    4
    The Sinking City is a detective horror adventure that would leave both Lovecraft fans and fans of Frogware's previous Sherlock Holmes games happy and excited to see what the studio is truly capable of. That is if they actually gave us a complete and functional title. Unfortunately, this game is not finished.

    Load times take over a minute on the PS4, manual saves don't load where you    The Sinking City is a detective horror adventure that would leave both Lovecraft fans and fans of Frogware's previous Sherlock Holmes games happy and excited to see what the studio is truly capable of. That is if they actually gave us a complete and functional title. Unfortunately, this game is not finished.

    Load times take over a minute on the PS4, manual saves don't load where you saved at and instead loads you at the closest point on the map you were. I know that gunplay is not supposed to be this game's strength, but even then it is not even subpar. There is no feedback on whether or not you are doing any damage to creatures, no real signs of damage nor feeling of impact. I fire point blank and I still have the lingering doubt that I am shooting through them, only when they drop do I know that I was hitting something. Some actual blood splatter and stronger impact sound effects would go a long way there. Movement, in general, is a chore as well. I get stuck on terrain constantly and climbing over things is inconsistent. The Field of View is also far too narrow and flat, and as is typical of most console versions of games, cannot be changed in the settings menu.

    The visuals lack polish in general as well. I am not expecting AAA animation and fidelity, but I am expecting something comparable to what this studio, Frogwares has done before. While the move to Unreal 4 is appreciated, the animations vary from jerky and robotic to constant waving and bobbing around. Some of the lazier and more automated animations were excusable in the past Sherlock Holmes games of theirs, but when you bump up your graphical fidelity and are going for an even more photorealistic look for your game, your animation needs to be able to back that up. Otherwise, work within your limitations and go for something more stylistic and appealing.

    The idea of an open city where you have to find clues and scavenge for crafting materials is a potentially interesting design choice. But the city is stretched way too much. It feels like I spend more time traveling looking for what I need to do as opposed to actually doing it. A smaller but more dense hub I think would have fit this game far better. That, or do what Frogware did in their past Sherlock Holmes games where you moved from point to point, that way you only have to go to places that actually serve some sort of purpose as opposed to walking around a bigger city simply for the sake of it.

    The only aspects that are effective really are the things left over from previous Frogware titles. Namely from the Testament of Sherlock Holmes and onwards. Up until then the voice acting and script writing were very much a dead giveaway of their budget nature if the graphics weren't enough to tip you off. Enjoyable in a so awkward that it's endearing kind of way. But from Testament and onward, the voice acting has been top notch. I am happy to say that the Sinking City does continue with this trend. And I am happy that the writing is of a quality seen in Crimes and Punishments, and not like the confused and inept Devil's Daughter. The actual detective work in the SInking City is the same found in Crimes and Punishments and Devil's Daughter, so if you know that system and enjoy it as I do, then you will be happy in that regard. Player choice and agency is of a similar level as well, you have to make sure you find and put the clues together correctly or else you may reach the wrong conclusions and have people suffer because of it. It is not afraid to let you be wrong in your conclusions and have you press on regardless. It is a design choice I greatly appreciate and respect in a detective adventure game. Only these games and L.A. Noire let you fail as a sleuth really.

    The problem is that in order to get to the parts of the game that really shines is that you need to, unfortunately, play the rest of the game. And because of those parts, namely the optimization, the combat, navigation, and overall polish cripple whatever chances this game had to be truly satisfying. Maybe some of the issues such as the long load times may be better on other platforms such as the PC or maybe the PS4 Pro or XBox One X, but the actual core of the game is inherently flawed. But as a fan of Frogware and Lovecraft, I would have loved to have played it on PC, I have the setup for it. It's a shame it won't be on Steam until next year. Maybe by then they can fix it up a bit and sell it at a discount and it will be worth it. God help you if you think the Switch port coming soon will even be able to get off the ground. It's a shame that in order for someone to think that the Sinking City is a solid game worth the $50 price point at this time, you'd have to be more insane than the citizens of Oakmont or anywhere else in the actual Lovecraftian mythos.    … Expand
  2. inmh
    Jul 5, 2019
    2
    Clunky mechanics and a ridiculously dull story-line. Characters were paper-thin and entirely unmemorable, including the protagonist.

    The graphics themselves aren't bad- when they load, anyway. Speaking of loading, you'll get used to the Loading Screens real quick, since they come almost constantly with any sort of scene-change and last anywhere from a minute to four minutes. There is    Clunky mechanics and a ridiculously dull story-line. Characters were paper-thin and entirely unmemorable, including the protagonist.

    The graphics themselves aren't bad- when they load, anyway. Speaking of loading, you'll get used to the Loading Screens real quick, since they come almost constantly with any sort of scene-change and last anywhere from a minute to four minutes.

    There is no butterfly effect in this game either; it sets you up like Call of Cthulhu, where you have to make specific choices to get a certain ending, but at the end of the game ALL options are available regardless of what you pick. Your choices don't mean ****

    I was hoping this would be better that Call of Cthulhu, which I was disappointed with; but this ended up being an even BIGGER disappointment.    … Expand
  3. PotatoPandaTV
    Mar 2, 2020
    4
    This game seemed to have promise when I first started this game. The idea of being able to go around and solve cases with somewhat minimal clues drew me in. The idea of having sparce ammunition and parts to build ammo is nothing new, but added some difficulty and sense if accomplishment to the game. But, the melee and shooting mechanics in this game are clunky at best. The graphics areThis game seemed to have promise when I first started this game. The idea of being able to go around and solve cases with somewhat minimal clues drew me in. The idea of having sparce ammunition and parts to build ammo is nothing new, but added some difficulty and sense if accomplishment to the game. But, the melee and shooting mechanics in this game are clunky at best. The graphics are weird, but also add some charm to the game. The limited ammo drew away from the game during parts where there seemed to be more enemies than ammo. The loading screens really helped kill this game for me, especially in areas where I died a lot.… Expand
  4. Lother
    Nov 7, 2021
    3
    The more I played, the more it devolved into pandering, progressive woke nonsense. Every checkbox is ticked here and shoved in your face:

    - oppressed illegal immigrants that did nothing wrong? check - rich individuals who wont share their wealth with the poor? check - charitable individuals redistributing the rich one's wealth to the poor? multiple check - secret homo relationship    The more I played, the more it devolved into pandering, progressive woke nonsense. Every checkbox is ticked here and shoved in your face:

    - oppressed illegal immigrants that did nothing wrong? check
    - rich individuals who wont share their wealth with the poor? check
    - charitable individuals redistributing the rich one's wealth to the poor? multiple check
    - secret homo relationship heavy handedly shoved as an afterthought you discover from a photo and never mentioned again? check
    - women's rights movement? check

    The game also clearly bashes you over the head with what the creators think is the correct moral decision(the PROGRESSIVE one) in each instance. You're given stupid choices like: expose a clearly evil person part of a dark cult by poisoning the food they distribute to the poor in order to gain members or simply leaving her alone. I mean, seriously, what the actual F?

    Oh and the gameplay is pretty clunky and just annoying. You run out of ammo so damn fast then have to scrounge for more. It's not like you can AVOID monsters, most of the time you do have to fight them and they take so many hits to go down. What's the point of giving the player supposedly better and better weapons if those don't 1-shot weaker enemies? 4-5 shotgun blasts to take down a giant, same for rifle rounds.....huh?

    I only gave this a chance because it really did start out very promising and had SOME elements from H.P. Lovecraft done well. I should have suspected the level of wokeness when the game went exclusive to Epic for so long.

    Don't play this, play Eternal Darkness, a perfect adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft themes. Oh how I wish they would just make a remaster of that instead.    … Expand
  5. JamesBurk22
    Jun 26, 2019
    0
    Honestly I'm really disappointed, especially because this game costs $75 in total. There's a 0-day dlc, and the game is very suboptimal. It seems pretty buggy, and its graphics quality doesn't look anything like the trailer, which makes me feel extremely disappointed. I can't give this game a really worthy score, and I really wanted to. At least a 3, or a 4 but I genuinely couldn't.
  6. CoreGamer1408
    Jul 31, 2022
    4
    What really holds back this game back is mostly the very poor frame rate optimization and annoying (character stuck on the environment) bugs. I like the idea and concept of this game. As in a Lovecraft detective style exploratory game. The face and voice of the playable character is sadly very punchable. The game has simple survival and crafting with a basic three tier skill tree withWhat really holds back this game back is mostly the very poor frame rate optimization and annoying (character stuck on the environment) bugs. I like the idea and concept of this game. As in a Lovecraft detective style exploratory game. The face and voice of the playable character is sadly very punchable. The game has simple survival and crafting with a basic three tier skill tree with branches. So yeah it’s not like that hard to get into or play. Visually it looks nice and detailed externally. With some nice lighting effects, but the internal environment look like a PS2 game. Maybe a 7/10 if performance and bugs were not a major issue.

    Time for a revisit in 2022 and performance is still bad (even for a PS4). I noticed this time round how the spawns are a very lazy and very cheap game design with clunky combat. I did really get into the ambience of the place though and all it's wierdness. I think I am enjoying the exploration, discovery and story elements more than the actual gameplay which is passable to meh. Performance issues don't help, but I am still wanting to play it for all it's problems for the most part.

    I generally like long games (Skyrim/Fallout) and this isn't the longest by far, but it started to drag late game. Bosses are all so anti-climatic. I like two of the three very short endings I unlocked (just reloaded the last save). Never play this game again it is so one and done.    … Expand
  7. Zakis1991
    Jul 8, 2022
    0
    Очень скучно, город мертвый, звук отвратительно проработан в игре, не говоря уже о РПГ состовляющей. Скучные перестрелки, скучные расследование, прокачка тоже такая себе... короче не рекомендую, если только вы не фанат Лавкрафта. Лор шикарный, но геймплей...Очень скучно, город мертвый, звук отвратительно проработан в игре, не говоря уже о РПГ состовляющей. Скучные перестрелки, скучные расследование, прокачка тоже такая себе... короче не рекомендую, если только вы не фанат Лавкрафта. Лор шикарный, но геймплей...

Awards & Rankings

66
#66 Most Discussed PS4 Game of 2019
71
#71 Most Shared PS4 Game of 2019

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
64

Mixed or average reviews - based on 35 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 11 out of 35
  2. Mixed: 21 out of 35
  3. Negative: 3 out of 35
  1. IGN Japan
    Nov 27, 2019
    77
    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.
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  2. PlayGround.ru
    Aug 1, 2019
    50
    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.
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  3. Playstation Official Magazine UK
    Jul 30, 2019
    60
    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]
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