The Sinking City – PS4

H. P. Lovecraft’s stories have been inspiring creators since his resurgence. Relatively unknown during his lifetime, he has become the go-to for the strange, the uncanny, the horrific and the supernatural. Once a cult figure, he now has droves of loyal followers; it’s almost as though Lovecraft himself has become the figure of Cthulhu, whose zealous denizens wander into the seas, never to be seen again; only the sea here in The Sinking City is the imagination.

Respecting source material and tailoring it to another medium is a difficult task. Especially when we consider the style of writing Lovecraft employs in his stories: even at the time, his prose was considered ornate – the man was a self-confessed anglophile. Lovecraft’s stories rely on both the imagination and the veiling of unknowable horrors. His subjects are hard to imagine, let alone depict and this is one of the reasons his writing has been so successful: his stories conjure a feeling of unease quite unlike any other horror.

Alternate Reality

The Sinking City begins with a dream sequence that reveals an upside-down world where Cthulhu reigns. You play as Charles Reed, a private investigator who has been having disturbing visions – one of which being the dream that introduces us to his plight. You awaken in the cabin of the unimaginatively named Charon, where you pick up your weapon, loot some lockers and read revealing letters.

Charles’s investigation had led him to the flooded city of Oakmont, Massachusetts, where he immediately learns of its perpetual apocalyptic flooding and its eccentric citizens. You’re thrown directly into your first case when you meet the intimidating Robert Throgmorton – a man whose son has gone missing and who was also suffering from similar visions.

The Mechanics Of Investigation

The Sinking City weaves together investigation mechanics with action-adventure. Where the game strays into action it suffers from a hastily assembled experience. The arsenal of weapons seems elaborate for a private investigator, considering the very nature of the job is privacy. Although the gunplay is inoffensive, it is surplus to requirements; combat isn’t essential in The Sinking City and should have remained that way throughout.

When you begin a new investigation, you will be inundated with clues and knowledge that you can use to piece together answers. As you talk, you learn more about the inhabitants of the world, important locations and key actors. The knowledge you gain prompts further exploration of the drowned map and the more knowledge you gain, the more the map reveals itself.

When you begin a quest, you’ll investigate the location; usually the scene of a crime. At the scene, there are markers that tell you where all the clues are. You’ll click on these and be told a little about what happened. For example, in the first area, you’ll be able to interact with a pool of blood – of course you will – and that will prompt a response. The responses are internal monologues that tell you what Charles Reed is thinking.

Once all the clues have been looked at and added to your case files, you’ll be able view more of the scene. You can use an ability called retrocognition: this lets players see beyond reality. The fog of the real world is pulled apart on the screen and a blue tinged underworld is revealed. A world where you can see the past. You piece together the order in which events took place and this reveals the conclusion of the scenario. Spectres will guide you the rest of the way to the final reveal.

My qualm with the system is that there is no failure. The developers proudly talk about how there’s no handholding and that they don’t tell you where to go and that there’s no map markers. So why is the game so unchallenging and passive? Whilst the game doesn’t tell you what to do, it gives up the answers without a fight. If you’re willing to read a lot of text, The Sinking City will reward you with everything you need to know.

This information is stored in your case file and more extensively and concisely in your mind palace. The mind palace is a portion of the menu where you can see important snippets of knowledge. You can connect two pieces of related information to reveal a truth. These truths later combine with others to reveal an outcome. Some of these require you to select which outcome you deem truest. Your decision has no bearing on the outcome of the game.

Are You Listening?

You will spend most of your time listening to dialogue and selecting responses that don’t actively change the game. Some responses will further the conversation and some will end it, but you can eek out all the available dialogue from any NPC you have the pleasure of conversing with.

This is an unusual system to implement because there’s no agency and it prolongs the dialogue unnecessarily. It is a lazy way to convey information. The only choice you can make is to decide whether you want to read all the dialogue; if you don’t, you’ll be able to leave the conversation after listening to a couple of lines.

Thankfully, the writing was engaging so I enjoyed listening to the conversations and reading the letters and diary entries. They capture the Lovecraftian tone well and this encouraged me to continue playing. For most players, however, I think this is too much writing.

The Art Of The Unreal

You will initially have access to a single area before furthering the storyline. Once past this point you can traverse the restricted open-world by foot or boat; although you can swim, it’s not recommended as it affects your sanity, which can lead to death. The reason I call it restricted is because of the lack of interaction the world allows for. The world in The Sinking City is a series of dedicated story enablers dotted around a film-set.

I was impressed by the attention to detail and the level of artistry that enlivens Oakmont but journeying through the city became mundane. As soon as the world is brought to life, not long after that does it die. Apart from its veneer, the world has no life, which is exacerbated by its lifeless AI wandering the streets as though they’d been told what to do and where to go… The eerily wonderful set, covered in barnacles and marine life is let down by a cast of actors who don’t know what they’re doing. Considering Oakmont is a city, and quite a large one at that, I was also surprised by the lack of people.

As a once avid RPG player I still have – thankfully a subsiding one – a tendency to press search, or use, on anything that represents a surface, just in case I reveal a hidden item. There’s nothing quite as frustrating as spending time exploring a world that doesn’t want to be explored. Every door I checked was closed and every side street led to nowhere. Even when I managed to find an open door, all that I ever found inside was a lootable container or another letter to add to my epistolary novel.

At one point, I noticed an ostentatiously clad cultist talking to a police officer outside the station, and it looked wrong; it conveyed the corruption of Oakmont but looked overly scripted. I don’t tend to notice what the AI gets up to in most games, but it stuck out like a sore thumb in Oakmont. They roam aimlessly enough but they do so with a mechanical jankiness.

Underwater Bloating

The Sinking City is bloated from being under water for too long. It is another example of a video game trying to do too much. I don’t want to make any assumptions about why this is the case because I don’t know. What I do know, is that I’d like to see developers focussing on the games they want to make without reference to data, statistics or feedback.

The otherworldly enemies you encounter are interesting, but they shift the intensity of a case-solving game towards action. Knowing the sea creatures are killable detracts from what we know of the Cthulhu mythos and The Great Old Ones. These are beings that see humans as ants; the notion that they’re killable or that we could outsmart them is laughable. Instead of killing sea creatures, the player could have been forced to flee from them. That said, I prefer the not seen to the seen.

Instead of traversing the middle ground between branching dialogue and a script, why not choose one and stick with it? The Sinking City would have worked better with either of these.

The End Of Mythos

Shortly after the opening sequences, we learn that our protagonist consumes a little too much laudanum. This might help to explain the reasons why he’s having such terrifying visions. The mere presence of the bottle and the accompanying dialogue is another example of the errors that litter this game.

I never felt like a detective in The sinking City and I never felt as though I was the one figuring out the cases. The clues were being handed to me as I played the game. I soon became bored because I didn’t have anything to do but follow a path. Granted, most single-player linear games have a path; but a path that is obscured by player agency and involvement.

The Sinking City is an average game with flaws. The writing is honest and accurately mimics the style of Lovecraft. There’s no shame in this; on the contrary, it is one of the strengths of the game. The writing isn’t gushing, it’s respectful. The world is marvellous to look at and functions well alongside the writing. These are all admirable traits and yet the game gets so much wrong. All the effort that was put into crafting the set, writing the script and even the quality voice acting, is let down by poor production and direction. The game doesn’t know what it wants to be and its mechanics wallow as puddles of sand in a sublimely decorated shell.