Summary
- The Sinking City 2 is shifting firmly towards survival horror like some other recent successful titles, such as the Silent Hill 2 Remake.
- Frogwares won full control of the IP rights for the franchise after a legal battle, and the sequel was successfully Kickstarted.
- The Sinking City 2 could introduce illusory foes to align with its Lovecraftian aspects and further enhance its tension and gameplay dynamics.
The Sinking City 2, indie developer Frogwares' upcoming follow-up to its 2019 cult classic Lovecraftian horror detective title, will be shifting direction from the original game to walk the road that a number of successful and well-received horror entries in recent times have. Titles like the Resident Evil remakes, Alan Wake 2, and last year's Silent Hill 2 Remake, have all utilized broadly similar but effective designs to create satisfying third-person horror experiences that resonated positively with fans. Frogwares has stated that The Sinking City 2 will explicitly be more of a survival horror experience, downplaying the first title's open-world and investigative aspects in favor of playing and feeling more like the aforementioned releases.
The announcement of the sequel came after Frogwares was previously embroiled in a lengthy legal battle with its former publisher BigBen (now Nacon) over the IP rights to the franchise, eventually winning full control and ownership. And recently, more good news for the studio and fans came when The Sinking City 2 quickly reached its Kickstarter funding goals, achieving its target and then some. With it set to lean more into the above survival horror style, Frogwares can embrace one longstanding Lovecraftian element to greatly elevate the threat its enemies will pose in the second outing.
A Sinking City remaster may also be happening sometime this year, though it has not been confirmed at this time.
The Sinking City 2 is Already in a Great Position to Improve on its Predecessor's Greatest Weakness
Frogwares' upcoming second Lovecraftian title is making some changes that will likely help smooth out one of The Sinking City's roughest areas.
The Sinking City 2 Can Play Up One Mind-bending Trope to Great Effect for its Enemies
The Sinking City's Creatures Were a Solid Foundation for the Sequel to Build On
By nature, Lovecraftian games are inherently ripe for creative and offputting enemy design. As detective Charles Reed gets drawn into the increasingly strange and surreal events occurring in the town of Oakmont in The Sinking City, he encounters an array of disturbing monsters scuttling around its flooded streets and abandoned buildings. The unnatural beasts stalking through Oakmont were visually well-designed, with often unpredictable movements and animations that could make encounters with them a stressful affair.
This was complemented by a sanity meter, a mechanic that also usually goes hand-in-hand with the genre. The longer Reed battled these otherworldly fiends, the more his sanity dipped. After a tipping point, the screen would begin to flash with visions of the monsters in something like a jump scare. It was purposefully distracting, representing Reed losing his grasp on reality, and could be taken much further in The Sinking City 2.
How The Sinking City 2 Can Use 'Fake Foes' to Increase its Scares
As mentioned, and based on what Frogwares has shown of it so far, it looks like The Sinking City 2 will be firmly taking cues from releases like Silent Hill 2 Remake, which itself resembled the Resident Evil remakes that more or less set the modern standard for third-person survival horror. With it placing more emphasis on nail-biting combat encounters in creepy and claustrophobic environments, The Sinking City 2 can expand on its prior designs by introducing illusory foes into the mix to keep players on their toes, messing with their perceptions and reactions.
Protagonists in horror games, especially Lovecraftian ones, are naturally susceptible to paranoia, and having enemies in The Sinking City 2 that seem like "normal" ones but are actually hallucinations could go a long way towards extending this to players themselves. Having foes that behave like regular ones but aren't "actually there" would be an assault on both the physical and psychological fronts. It would help up the tension, and keep fans constantly on edge. Such a design could then cause players to potentially expend valuable ammo on "false" creatures, and force them to re-evaluate their strategies in encounters. The sequel then has a great chance to iterate and improve on how its monsters function to make them more dynamic and fitting to its new vision.
WHERE TO PLAY
- Genre(s)
- Survival Horror, Action, Mystery
