The Sinking City Review
H.P. Lovecraft had two main themes in his writing: xenophobia and the insignificance of humanity in comparison to the vast universe. Obviously, I have a problem with how racist and intolerant he was, but the latter theme really resonates with me. As I mentioned in my review of Outer Wilds, outer space scares me to no end, not only because it’s a nightmare hellscape of death and destruction, but also because it shows no human effort can ever truly matter. So obviously me and HP see eye-to-eye on this point. Because of this, I get pretty excited whenever I hear about a new video game inspired by his works. Last week was no exception with the release of The Sinking City.
In The Sinking City, players take control of Charles Reed. Charles is the sole survivor of the sinking of the United States Navy vessel Cyclops by an enormous sea creature. Since then, Charles has gained the ability to see beyond reality and look into the past, but has also been plagued by haunting nightmares and fainting spells. Using his unique abilities to work as a private eye, Charles travels to the secluded town of Oakmont in search of others suffering from similar maladies. Unfortunately, the citizens of Oakmont aren’t much for charity, and Charles must first help them with their problems before they will help him with his. So players must travel around the city, solving mysteries and shooting monsters to get to the bottom of a plague of madness drawing people to Oakmont.
One thing is immediately apparent upon starting the game, and that is that the developers very clearly understand Lovecraftian fiction. Right from the jump, Charles is portrayed as a weary, paranoid drug addict trying desperately to fight against something infinitely larger than himself, capturing the essence of Lovecraftian protagonists. Oakmont itself is also quite Lovecraftian. Absent from most maps, half flooded, infested with horrid monstrosities, and nearly always raining, it feels both dreary and morbidly mysterious. There are also plenty of references to Lovecraft’s works in both characters and the environment. Oakmont citizens with the Innsmouth Look, descendants of Arthur Jermyn, a man who is almost certainly the King in Yellow, as well as businesses and local landmarks referencing the Whateley family, Dagon, and Cthulhu all combine to make a fascinating and unsettling setting.
Setting alone can’t make a good game, it also needs to play well and, thanks to their history of making Sherlock Holmes games, the developers at Frogwares know how to make a good detective game. The first example of this is that, upon starting the game, players choose the difficulty level for combat and detective work separately. I think this is a smart move because it allows a much wider variety of people to play their game. For newcomers to the genre who know how to properly shoot monsters, they can make the combat appropriately challenging but get some help on the investigation front, while the more cerebral players can make the combat a breeze but make sure the detective work is a fitting mental challenge. My favorite part of the detective mechanics is present regardless of difficulty setting, and that is players are responsible for deciding where they need to go to further their investigation. No icons are added to the game map or HUD, so players are responsible for adding them themselves. I don’t know if Frogwares has done this before or if it was inspired by Breath of the Wild, but it’s so cool and makes me feel that much more like I’m actually a detective. Astoundingly, there’s a limit on how many marks you can put on the map, which feels like giving a player wings but then saying they can only fly so high.
Marring what would otherwise be one of my top games of the year are a number problems that can be sorted into two categories: strange choices and technical failures. When I purchased The Sinking City, I noticed it had a few DLCs available for purchase, and I almost immediately changed my mind based on one of those DLC offerings. It seems that players can pay $3 for a skill point, normally earned through gaining experience points during the game. I know I don’t fully understand the demands of corporate goons and the massive gamer audience, but the choice to offer this makes the game feel a bit sullied. Relating to skill points, another weird decision the developers made was to not include a confirmation check for assigning those skill points. They’re not easy to come by, so spending one because of an errant button press seems inconsiderate. Lastly, and least egregious, there’s a costume change option. Most of these are unremarkable, but a few costumes break from the tonal consistency of the game. I don’t imagine this will bother most people, but it made me stop short when I saw it.
Worse than weird decisions, The Sinking City is riddled with technical problems that don’t seem fitting for a developer who’s been in business for almost 20 years. Understanding that I have an older PC, my graphics settings were medium at best, but I still ran into a lot of issues. The biggest problem to me was that background characters will often vanish when you look away from them. At first I thought this was a manifestation of the protagonist’s psychosis, but it happened regardless of how full my sanity meter was, so I guess the game engine can’t maintain that many NPCs at a time. There were also a lot of issues of physics objects suddenly launching themselves across the screen when they had any sort of contact with the player character. Sure Bethesda gets away with that stuff but I don’t know that they’re a role model studio these days. Lastly, while the town of Oakmont had a lot of citizens in the background, the engine doesn’t seem to be capable of dealing with the player interacting with the NPCs, causing them to stop whatever they were doing and resorting to some sort of back-up programming. The most entertaining example of this was a woman crying over a baby stroller, but when I got within a few feet, she immediately stopped and walked away, only to have another different woman walk into her place and start sobbing.
As long as I was playing The Sinking City, I didn’t want to stop. But, as soon as I did take a break for whatever reason, it was a fight to get myself back into the game. It was almost like hypnosis, causing me to overlook the numerous problems while I was playing, but once I stopped, I couldn’t ignore them. I know I’ll keep playing The Sinking City in the future, but I advise the rest of you to wait until it’s significantly discounted from its $60 price tag.
Buy this game on sale
It’s worth playing, just not at the price they’re asking
