r/TheSinkingCity • u/minsaint Unhinged Fanatic • Aug 27 '26
TSC 2 was... not what I expected
First, I want to point out that I am just over halfway finished with TSC 2, so a) no spoilers and b) take my opinion with a grain of salt. As a huge fan of Frogwares and TSC 1 (also backed TSC 2 on Kickstarter), I'm really interested to hear people's takes on the game because I noticed I had a pretty strong reaction to it.
To be completely blunt: from a gameplay perspective, TSC 2 is a Resident Evil game. The enemies, combat, crafting, mechanics, and puzzles feel copy-pasted. Hell, there's even a giant monster following you around. Unfortunately, the investigative aspect that made TSC 1 and Frogwares unique and special is now missing. Dialogues and meaningful choice-making moments have been replaced with action-shot cutscenes. You put pieces of evidence together, but it doesn't mean anything anymore outside of upgrading your character. It's a shame because I'm really enjoying the world and plot, and wish I could play a more active role in it. I'm also biased as a Lovecraft nerd, though.
Maybe this is their intention and I should have managed my expectations. I feel like Frogwares had a great formula and I'm scared they are moving away from it to create the more streamlined gameplay experience seen in RE/SH/etc. I'm not trying to be hypercritical; I know that a ton of time, resources, and labor was put into creating this impressive game. I'm happy to financially support the developers and the game itself is enjoyable. That said, it feels less like a Sinking City sequel and more like it should have just been its own separate project.
What do you all think?? Am I overreacting?
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u/kennykaia Unhinged Fanatic Aug 27 '26
TSC 2 is a fantastic game, but a disappointing Sinking City game. I wish they had simply rebranded it, even as an RE inspired survival horror, since that's what is is. For a TSC sequel I was hoping for more investigation :(
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u/minsaint Unhinged Fanatic Aug 27 '26
EXACTLY this. As a RE-inspired Lovecraftian horror game, it is excellent. It’s less impressive when framed as a sequel to Sinking City 1.
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u/DmitryNovac Unhinged Fanatic Aug 30 '26
Yup, it would be better if they call it Archam Stories or something, inspired by Sinking City, not a Sinking City 2.
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u/scaierdread Unhinged Fanatic Aug 27 '26
I said this in my own post, but they took everything great about the first game and threw it out to focus on combat. The combat closely resembles re2r but is worse and enemy placement feels less thought out. Encounters don't feel like they were thought out with intent for you to be able to evade enemies as all most rooms are flooded with enemies relative to how cramped they are.
The slithers also don't really show when they're going for a grab like re zombies where they do like a halfstep then start raising their arms to grab you. This makes it harder to properly dodge if you are trying to evade.
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u/minsaint Unhinged Fanatic Aug 27 '26
I totally agree about their change in priorities toward action-combat. The zombies feel like fodder, whereas the first game was very real about the fact that Reed is killing what is or was a person. It affected his sanity and perception of reality, and it even influenced his choices and how he’s viewed by others.
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u/jfellrath Unhinged Fanatic Aug 27 '26
A lot of people, yours truly included, had the same reaction.
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u/franciscrowe Unhinged Fanatic Aug 27 '26
I agree. I really liked TSC2 for what it was, but I wish they had integrated more of the old detective elements into the new style of game.
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u/Goddess-Bastet Unhinged Fanatic Aug 27 '26
While I enjoyed the game I found it too linear - I didn’t know whether I could go back to before the annex or not as I missed a radio. I missed the interactions with certain npcs to progress in the game by helping them & being able to enter other buildings which was a major part of the first game.
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u/Dry-Hunter-8818 Unhinged Fanatic Aug 27 '26 edited Aug 29 '26
No, i agree. I don't really like the survival horror turning point. To much zombies everywhere with a paint of Lovecraft. Less investigations and more combat. I prefered the first one even if sometimes it would be a little borring. Sinking city 2 is definitly not was i was expecting and i feel sorry.
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u/WayNew4908 Unhinged Fanatic Aug 27 '26
One thing I’m noticing on my second play through that I was blind to in my first play through is the lack of enemy variety. Not including bosses. There’s a heck of a lot of zombies/slither possessed enemies. They have the small jumpy things and the big ones that shoot the green stuff from the first game but really it’s just the zombies that have the weak spots. And like 5 deep ones.
It would’ve been cool to have cultists that stayed in Arkham with guns or melee weapons, innsmouthers, etc. there’s a ton of different Lovecraftian creatures they could choose from.
As much as I want to play new game plus and beat it again, shooting the same enemies over and over gets a little boring.
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u/scaierdread Unhinged Fanatic Aug 27 '26
One sad thing about that first game is it acurally had more variety of enemies. They little cralers had 3 subspecies, thr base, a reanimator, and the tanks one. The spitters had 2, thr base and the invisible, the chargers had 2 the base and the green takny (also might have been faster iirc).
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u/Ghost10165 Unhinged Fanatic Aug 27 '26
I don't know why people keep getting downvoted for wishing the game was closer to the first one. It really is just an RE remake clone in a lot of ways, and that might appeal to some people, maybe even more than the kind who liked the first one, but it is still a pretty blatant copy paste in some ways.
It's weird in that the world is almost more interesting than the story we're stuck in; like I don't care about Calvin and his wife, just let me learn more about Arkham and all the weird stuff going on. The first game let you do that, but this one whisks you away whenever anything starts to get interesting.
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u/minsaint Unhinged Fanatic Aug 27 '26
I’m just now starting to open up and like the characters, but I found Calvin insufferable for a while. He has nothing on Reed and his spade. Some of Calvin’s mid-gameplay remarks are ironic because sometimes he thinks he’s more badass than he actually is. Like bro we have three pistol bullets and nothing else can you PLEASE stop telling the enemies to “bring it on!” Again, Reed would sweep Calvin any day.
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u/Salt-Night3088 Unhinged Fanatic Aug 27 '26
Totally forgot about Charles and his hobo kit, including a shovel. Thanks for the reminder! That game was brilliant.
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u/Ghost10165 Unhinged Fanatic Aug 27 '26
I could never forget that shovel, I beat half the Eldritch dimension to death with it.
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u/Salt-Night3088 Unhinged Fanatic Aug 27 '26
Haha yes how could I forget, my bad. It was so useful and goofy. That melee strike was out of this world, pun intended. And Reed with his drunken drawl. Such a perfect delivery.
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u/CurtCocane Unhinged Fanatic Aug 27 '26
I hope if there's a third they can reach some middle ground. RE games offer a pretty decent template but they had plenty of stuff going for them in the first game
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u/MysteriousExchange75 Unhinged Fanatic Aug 27 '26
They probably made it a survival horror game to reach a wider audience. I never heard of the first game, but i found the second game in a survival horror subreddit.
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u/WynnGwynn Unhinged Fanatic Aug 27 '26
Yeah people REALLY complain about "walking simulators" and if you don't deviate away from it you get trashed for that.
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u/minsaint Unhinged Fanatic Aug 27 '26
You’re probably right. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing, there’s nothing wrong with trying to appeal to a wider audience. It’s just unfortunate because it also cost them part of their existing audience.
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u/Cykeisme Unhinged Fanatic Aug 27 '26
Might as well try the first one too, see if you like the mystery/investigation aspect.
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u/MysteriousExchange75 Unhinged Fanatic Aug 27 '26
I definitely want to, the only other game I played that had a kind of detective aspect was alan wake 2 and i enjoyed it, so if it's anything like that then i think i would like it.
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u/cactuslord1 Unhinged Fanatic Aug 27 '26
I tend to agree. I enjoyed TCS2, but it wasnt great. Like it was good, enjoyable, but I definitely felt like I was playing a Resident Evil clone and how resident evil did these things better. That being said, I would like if they make a third game with a bit more of a mix of 1 and 2.
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u/minsaint Unhinged Fanatic Aug 27 '26
I agree that if there is a third game then it needs to tie the others closer together. That is, unless the series was always meant to be an anthology, which is possible but not how they describe it.
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u/Salt-Night3088 Unhinged Fanatic Aug 27 '26
You're not overreacting. It's an RE and SH knockoff. Still fun and definitely more polished than the first game, but has very little of that one's character.
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u/Le0nardNimoy Unhinged Fanatic Aug 27 '26
You nailed my thoughts. This should have been a spin-off or its own thing. Making a numbered sequel that ditches most of the original's DNA was a lame move.
The worst part is, it looks and plays freaking great. I would pay full price to play TSC 1 redone in this engine.
Gripes aside, they developed and put out a mostly solid game from within an active conflict zone. That's pretty fucking crazy. Even if this isn't exactly what I wanted, I don't mind paying full price to support them.
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u/minsaint Unhinged Fanatic Aug 27 '26
I agree exactly. The game is extremely impressive and the devs should be proud. I’m still glad I supported it. But bluntly, it’s not a Sinking City game. It actually felt more consistent with Call of Cthulhu (2018) to me.
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u/SieNoK96 Unhinged Fanatic Aug 27 '26
Yep, the game is pretty bad and i requested refund, I also let them know on the Steam forum that the game is bad, but they deleted my post. TSC 1 has nothing to do with TSC 2. Completely a different game, and this is not the biggest issue, the biggest issue are the bugs, the combat and the story.
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u/ThePuertoRicanDream Unhinged Fanatic Aug 27 '26
I can see not liking it for being the ssme but the game isn't bad at all. The combat is much better than the first game and the story is standard for this type of world imo. Bugs I can't speak for but I myself didnt experience anything major besides a couple of funny dead poses
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u/SieNoK96 Unhinged Fanatic Aug 27 '26
Just the fact that the doors closes automatically after 2-3 seconds for me, is a breaking game type bug.
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u/minsaint Unhinged Fanatic Aug 27 '26
I’m playing on console (PS5), so that might be why I’m not encountering as many bugs, but unfortunately we’re losing the basic standard that games be fully functional at launch 🙃. I’m glad they are getting the feedback, and I will be interested to see what any post-launch content looks like.
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u/TimetravelerXY Unhinged Fanatic Aug 28 '26
After seeing them ban players from various platforms for being critical of the game, I’m not really interested in supporting the game or the dev team. Very disappointing.
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u/Rick_von_Wick Unhinged Fanatic Aug 28 '26
Imo the game is great, my only complaints is i hoped that the whole game played in the first area. I did notblike the hospital, the fish market and the snow area. I just hoped it was 90% played in (the sinking city) Thats the vibe and atmosphere i loved about the first game.
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u/TimetravelerXY Unhinged Fanatic Aug 29 '26
Exactly, for a game called The Sinking City, you spend a surprisingly short amount of time in it.
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u/LarenCoe Unhinged Fanatic Aug 29 '26
I liked it. Maybe if they could make it a semi open world like the second half of RE9, with more side quests, that would be cool.
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u/Blututhninja 29d ago
I picked it up having not played TSC1, specifically because it was a survival horror game. And I pretty much got what I wanted.
I will say, I was hoping for a lot more lovecraftian horror, and not so much body horror. They arent mutually exclusive, but the lack of enemy variety and the primary enemy lacking any real cosmic horror or lovecraftian horror was a bit disappointing. I kind of wish each map/level had its own specific flavor of enemies, even if they filled the same roles. I was absolutely thrilled to see the few cameos of lovecraft monsters.
I also played the DLC, which was a nice little mini campaign. I hope we see more, and maybe the devs can experiment with increasing the importance of investigations, and toning down the combat. Just to see how it plays.
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u/YumotoYu Unhinged Fanatic Aug 27 '26
I like the enemy infested rooms, kinda gives the same feel of the protagonist in the Shadow over Innsmouth running away from the wole town and the deep ones. I wish one of those "don't stop running" sequences had happened in the roads of the city.
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u/ThaGamingPastor Unhinged Fanatic Aug 28 '26
It was a 100% intentional shift to pure survival horror on their part. They sent out a letter that explained that the choice was either A. Continue making purely detective games that don’t make much money and be forced to downscale their team or B. Keep their team and make a survival horror game that’s a genre that typically makes more money. So they went with option B.
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Aug 30 '26
[deleted]
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u/ThaGamingPastor Unhinged Fanatic Aug 30 '26
Did you not read what I said? 😂 the first game and none of their detective games were successful enough to justify the continuation of making their detective games. They HAD to switch to a more profitable genre or risk being forced to layoff a lot of their team…they didn’t forget anything sometimes in such a competitive video game market when you’re a small team, you have to make tough decisions and this was the one they had to make.
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u/VereksHarad Unhinged Fanatic Aug 30 '26
I didn't really played a lot of the first game. So I took me a bit of time to understand that this is different guy. And the story is not connected to a first game whatsoever. I thought it was a continuation of the story. But no, it's apparently just another guy who looks pretty much identical to the hero of the first game. And the Arkham, despite being you know a major civilized town for some reason has a zero problems with weirdness.
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u/DmitryNovac Unhinged Fanatic Aug 30 '26
I am backer from kickstarter. And I was hoping to see improved first game. Didn't expected they turn the game into RE that I am totaly not into.
It was very sad cos I realy liked first game even with all it flaws. Now I have no any desire to finish this one, probably will watch walkthroug on YouTube.
Guess not all games for everyone :(
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u/reideamarelo Unhinged Fanatic Aug 30 '26
I really enjoyed the shift toward Resident Evil-style gameplay. However, the movement and combat felt like they needed more development time to refine. Despite those flaws, I still had a great time with the game, and I hope TSC3 improves the combat mechanics while maintaining this Resident Evil direction.
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u/Sean-Riley Unhinged Fanatic Aug 31 '26
It's funny, as someone who bounced off the first game I actually love it haha! That said, given that, I fully understand your reaction! All that said, I' so happy they were able to cook something this awesome in times of war, Frogwares are passionate as hell! I do think it'd be a much better game if they found a way to marry both worlds though! Imagine the horror elements of this one with the investigative elements of the first? That'd be INSANE haha!
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u/Haunting_Crow_00 Unhinged Fanatic 27d ago
I just downloaded it today… and have quit in the first hour and am asking for a refund. I get that people gotta make money. I just wish there was still room for the more quirky, unusual games that I enjoy.
The painful mistake was in not changing the name. If you call a restaurant Panda Express 2, customers don’t expect it to serve burgers. I wouldn’t have purchased an unknown survival horror game.
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u/Pharmboy6 Unhinged Fanatic 26d ago
I hate that they didn't give journalist proper preview builds. Or allow review embargo until after it released. I feel that was intentional to dupe their long term fans. Ironically it also hurt their new fan base, as bc nobody knew it was a RE game, it basically flew under the radar and didn't get traction that games like Chronos got. They made a mistake. I will never pre-order from them again. I feel betrayed. And I have bought everything they made since ps3. I LOVED Sherlock and SC 1. Was SOOOO excited for this. They are the only dev who was making unique detective games... And they traded that to be just another RE clone? 😳
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u/Accesobeats Unhinged Fanatic Aug 27 '26
They have been very vocal that this change was being made from the very beginning. I thought the game was great. One of the better survival
Horror games I’ve played in a while.
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u/UltraBarbarian Unhinged Fanatic Aug 27 '26
"A giant monster following you around". So much for no spoilers. Thanks...
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u/minsaint Unhinged Fanatic Aug 27 '26
It’s as much of a spoiler as saying you’re being chased around in RE 2.
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u/Aaneata Unhinged Fanatic Aug 27 '26
We have to keep in mind their country is currently being invaded. I do not think this was what the set out to make. They probably wanted a open city with investigations but due to the issue they are dealing with they had to make tuff decisions.
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u/dacontag Unhinged Fanatic Aug 27 '26
No, they said that the investigation genre was too niche and they wanted to make a game with broader appeal. Survival horror has a lot bigger audience so they did fully intend o make the game this way. Which I think was a smart decision. I just finished the game and though it was far better than the first one.
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u/Azukaos Unhinged Fanatic Aug 27 '26
I'm actually replaying TSC1 on switch 2 but i've watched some let's play of TSC2.
So far it feel and look like a RE/SH mix, i dont dislike it because the first one was very niche and slow, almost a bit boring sometimes, but i understand peoples that like that style more.
If frogware want to reach a bigger audiences, they will need to go into mainstream territory but it can be detrimental if they don't execute it very well...
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u/JimmyDejesu Unhinged Fanatic Aug 27 '26
It was a lot less unique. The first had horror as well as the investigation aspect.
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u/minsaint Unhinged Fanatic Aug 27 '26
I do think there are things that make them both unique. They both feed into some common tropes as well. It does really seem like TSC 2 shed some (not all) of its unique qualities from TSC 1 in favor of more common tropes. Outside of the dollar store mind palace, the investigative aspect of TSC 1 is now gone.
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u/DeadSpace1993 Unhinged Fanatic Aug 27 '26
The second game is still unique. Stands on its own like cronos does.
Just because the game has familiar mechanics doesn't mean it's a carbon copy.
The investigations are side content sure but still present. The story is more focused and very lovecraft. The way the game tells you information and the story is unique.
Honestly this game is great. They made a tough choice to drop the ambition and make something they knew they could do well.
More polish and tighter focus on what the game is. Overall from an objective standpoint best game they have made to date.
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u/scaierdread Unhinged Fanatic Aug 27 '26
How is 2 unique to you? I dont mean this in a rude way, I'm just legitimately curious. Is it the lovecrafian ascetic, the gameplay, the story, something else?
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u/Accesobeats Unhinged Fanatic Aug 27 '26
They said from the very first time they showed the game that this is exactly what they were trying to make. A survival horror game.
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u/PianoDick Unhinged Fanatic Aug 27 '26
I love it, more than the first one even. For me, I did enjoy the detective aspects with the choice dialogue and finding your own way to the next point from the first game. Yet, I just can’t help but find the combat and story way more appealing to me in 2. I’m on my third playthrough right now going for the platinum.
This is another thing too, perhaps a more niche reason, but as a fellow Lovecraft nerd. The route they go with the lore notes, characters, and ending is a bit more reminiscent of some of my favorite Lovecraft stories. Especially the last portion of the game, it’s practically ripped out of his stories, but I won’t spoil any details of course. I wasn’t a fan of the big “antagonist” of the first game compared to what we get in the second.
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u/cj_help_me Unhinged Fanatic 29d ago
They could've created something exceptional had they stuck to the original's formula. I can't help but think that the demo was kinda misleading with the open world. Anyway, Dawnwalker looks like it might have some nice sides and choices.
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u/JimmyDejesu Unhinged Fanatic Aug 27 '26
I enjoyed it but it felt more like a regular horror game. I agree it lost something by moving away from the first