After 2 hours, this new Lovecraftian horror game feels like a faithful mashup of Resident Evil and Silent Hill

The Sinking City 2 had me anxious before I booted it up for the first time, and that had nothing to do with the cosmic horror in store. I'm a long-time fan of Frogware's Sherlock Holmes games, and really enjoyed the open-world investigation of the original The Sinking City in spite of its clunky combat. The news that this sequel would focus on that survival horror, frankly, isn't what I was hoping for. But, one of the great, cosmic unknowables lies between what we think we want and what we actually want. So far, I'm pleasantly surprised to be loving the drippy, tentacled survival horror in The Sinking City 2.

This sequel shifts the action from Oakmont to Arkham. Like the first game's setting, this city is also under the grip of a supernatural flood, completely submerging the many streets between buildings, the water bringing with it tentacled horrors from the depths to infect and destroy surface dwellers like the fedora-wearing Calvin Rafferty, who's come to the town to hunt down Faye, his missing wife. This city, after all, is where they fell in love.

Water we like

The Sinking City 2's wife-hunt survival horror premise isn't the most original in the world. In all things, this is a genre-savvy outing, and having played both the Silent Hill 2 remake and the Resident Evil 2 remake to death in recent years I'm right at home from the moment Calvin wakes up in the local university's waterlogged library annex. If it ain't broke, well, you know.

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Soaked in darkness, Calvin has a torch that can light the way. On the hunt for a mysterious book, I push forward through any doors that aren't locked, pulling up a map screen now and then which is helpfully annotated with nearby pick-ups and points of interests, and switches its rooms from red to blue once they've been appropriately scoured for goodies.

My goal lies upstairs, and, pleasingly, the map isn't perfect. Broken walls and rubble can block off passages that at first seem viable on the map, while at other points partial collapse can connect new pathways through rooms. Cautiously, I move through the shin-high water, ripples as Calvin moves forward putting me on edge, and some wonderful gnarly set-dressing doing much the same. This library is infested with thick, leech-like worms, and dead bodies that they're doing something to litter the hallways. With glistening terrors aplenty, The Sinking City 2 offers up some stomach-churningly good horror.

Before long, the ripples in the water aren't coming from Calvin alone. A bloated human – or former human – twitches towards me, pus covering its body. Playing on normal difficulty, I end up unloading most of my handgun clip to down the monster in a panic, feeling thoroughly resource-starved as I creep towards the library's upper levels.

Then, I'm jumped by a small, spindly monster that knocks me back down over a balcony, splashes a quick retreat, and awakens more bloating shamblers. This time, I take a breath and aim at the monsters' pus-clusters. They pop, and finally I feel like my pea-shooter has some impact. The clusters reform, and I burst them with another bullet to finish them off.

The next one I stagger takes a knee, and I run over to stomp on it while it's down to conserve ammo and end the encounter with impact. It's a returning move from the first game, but it's nice to see the stamp get some extra love in this new context. These don't lock you into finishing animations like they do in Resident Evil Requiem, nor do they feel as punchy – but it's still nice to feel like there is a rhythm and process to optimally keeping the drowned at bay, though I still fall into a panic on occasion.

Before long, I'm leaving the library behind, navigating the flooded streets on a tiny motorboat in order to reach The Devil's Reef Hotel (a curious detail for those familiar with the Oakmont branch). A blocked gate forces me to detour into a church, fighting and sometimes running through its graveyard full of the spider-like spindly creatures that I only briefly encountered before.

Ready to jump at Calvin and claw at his face, the strategy of dodging out of the way at the right moment from the first game persists, their flubbed pounce opening them up to a good stamping or, better yet, sending them hurtling into one of the many bear traps the residents of Arkham seem keen to leave around the place (to be fair, with the size of these monsters, mousetraps wouldn't cut it).

It's here in the church I finally get to put my detective fedora back on to puzzle through a Lovecraftian mystery. With the floodgates locked, I have to explore in and around the church to puzzle it out. Picked up clues can be placed on a mind-map investigation board, and connected together freely to infer solutions.

Though, you don't need to do so. Only a couple of clues are required to find the code, and it's up to me whether I continue my investigation to uncover the true mystery behind the strange church, a mysterious trident, and an obelisk puzzle in its garden. I'm only pushed to do so as reaching its end is part of my demo, otherwise I'd be free to progress to the hotel.

In typical Lovecraftian fashion, the answers I get just raise more questions, and I'm curious how optional sections like this will square with Calvin's larger quest. But, with resource rewards and an upgrade currency for Calvin's Nightshade mask (a weird blank-faced mask that Calvin has for some reason) up for grabs for correct solutions, they're worth puzzling out even if only to twist the cosmic to your own ends.

Call the medic

From there, I'm skipped ahead to play through the beginning of a much larger, twistier building – the Akeley Memorial Hospital. Still riddled with the tentacled, the bloated, and the wet, there's also weird science afoot that suggests a broadening of the Lovecraftian mythos at play within Arkham's streets. Here, the labyrinthine halls that I slowly open up through finding keys and opening up bolted doors are sometimes blocked by strange, slick, curved metal mirrors that will only open up to specific faces.

The MacGuffin that Calvin is here to collect lies behind a similarly high-tech lock, which combines science with runic symbols – having me combine both at charging stations to suck up energy into a prism device. I only get to work part of my way towards this goal before my demo is over, yet this location doesn't just up The Sinking City 2's strangeness, but suggests how sweeping and maze-like some of the game's later areas could get (this, I'm told, is about midway through).

It's high praise to compare The Sinking City 2 to the modern takes on Resident Evil 2 and Silent Hill 2. This definitely feels a bit ropier, especially when it comes to combat, though later weapon upgrades promise a smidge more punch. But, as ever, this is Frogwares absolutely locking in to punching about its weight, and, to be honest, I didn't expect pivoting from the investigation-focused original to survival horror would work nearly as well as my two hours hands-on with The Sinking City 2 has shaped up. The studio definitely knows its stuff when it comes to developing in this new genre.

It's a mechanical pivot that still won't be for everyone, though. While it's great to see investigation elements make a return, the emphasis on survival horror will still turn away some of those who are only interested in the mysteries. But, it does further delineate the studio's cosmic horror series with its Sherlock Holmes one. And, it works well for me – because I just so happen to also really like survival horror as well as a good mystery. This combination of both feels a bit forbidden, but I won't be able to resist cracking it open to peer in once more once The Sinking City 2 releases later in 2026 across PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.

Take a look at our best survival horror games recommendations if you're feeling brave enough for more!