At today’s Xbox Partner Review, we got a reveal trailer for The Sinking City 2. This long-awaited sequel features the same grimy horror vibes as its predecessor and is shaping up to be another great undersea adventure.
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You can view the trailer here:
Here are the details from the Xbox Wire:
The characters in a Lovecraft story are susceptible to… mutation. Minds and bodies are forever altered by exposure to the horrors hiding in the darker corners of the world. It’s perhaps no surprise, then, that The Sinking City 2 – which just got a world premiere in the latest Xbox Partner Preview broadcast – has undergone its own unexpected change.
Where the first game was a detective adventure, with horror bubbling up from its flooded world, its sequel has taken on a darker, more aggressive form. The Sinking City 2 is a true horror game now, with more emphasis on combat, while keeping a Lovecraftian narrative close to its twisted heart.
Like the first game, Frogwares are using an early 20th Century setting, a city afflicted by flooding, and an outsider stepping into a situation they cannot comprehend. But unlike the original, we’re now being thrown headfirst into a horror story (rendered in the powerful Unreal Engine 5) – and the city in question is an unexpectedly familiar place.
That character isn’t the first game’s lead, Charles Reed – Frogwares aren’t yet ready to talk about who he is – but it was a very purposeful choice to offer players some new shoes to fill:
We wanted to create a story and setting that wasn’t burdened by what we created in The Sinking City, especially since players have various endings they favored or considered the ‘true ending’. This way we can let existing fans come back into this world fresh, while anyone who never played the original game can also step in without feeling like they are missing a big chunk of the story.
Combat and exploration are the main focus now, with the horror setting more prominent. We’re also going to be smarter with our city design, making our world smaller to keep things flowing better. We’ve been hard at work focusing on making sure our combat is now central to the game. With this then comes enemy design, to ensure there is a strong visual horror element. On top of that, we also have our level design, story, and world design all leaning a lot more toward horror, so overall it’s a much stronger push in this direction.
— Sergey Oganesyan, Frogwares Head of Publishing
As for the detective work, it’s still there but now through a revamped system that makes it all optional. Players can now choose to investigate clues, knowing that in return they may get info that helps them progress differently. For example, engaging in some additional sleuthing may yield information on how to weaken a formidable boss or help you discover an alternate route that you had no idea about. You could, of course, progress without this knowledge, but it will be potentially easier or more engrossing to do so based on info you’ve deduced.
The Sinking City 2 currently has no release date, but it will be coming to PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC. A Kickstarter page for the project will go up in the near future.
Source: Xbox Wire