Developer: Frogwares
Publisher: Frogwares
Platform: PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Switch
Tested on: PS5
The Sinking City (PS5) – Review
We didn’t know it was already almost two years ago when we found ourselves steering a leaky boat towards The Sinking City. We tried the game out on PC and on its portable counterpart, the Switch. While we were impressed with the overall graphical prowess of the Switch version, we felt that for both versions the game itself lacked a certain ‘something’ to make it a great experience. The Sinking City does have a good story to tell, it’s just the overall gameplay that didn’t motivate us to press on after a certain point. This time, we get to see its ‘final’ version for PS5, which we once again dived into. For our full in-depth reviews, we suggest reading the PC review by clicking here, or the Switch review by clicking here. Below, we’ll just discuss the next-gen version and won’t dive that deep into the base mechanics of the game.
We can immediately start off by saying that the PS5 version of The Sinking City looks amazing. While there are imperfections, such as clipping errors, or texture popping, this game still looks very good. True, some facial expressions and characters are still very (f)ugly, but the world feels a bit more alive than our experience on the Switch, with more random people running around. This, in combination with the massive amount of clutter in and outside the buildings, makes for a fairly impressive world. Sadly, the developers are not doing that much with it, and our earlier remark of having a slightly smaller map still stands.
Just like the other versions, this PS5 installment is just the same detective game as before. You have to puzzle together clues, which are often found with your special psychic ability. After finding every clue, you basically relive the events and can proceed. This is a fairly nice format to present the story, but it’s nothing innovative, which was already the case for the 2019 versions of the game.
As mentioned in the original reviews, the problem with The Sinking City is the fact that it gets bland quite quickly. The game tries to be a bit of everything, eventually being unpolished in its game mechanics. You’ll more than often not get any clear instructions where you’ll have to go, there is too much running back and forth, the combat is extremely clunky and horribly handled, which all combine into one hot mess. It doesn’t mean that the game is bad, it just means that it feels unfinished or just not polished enough to be seen as a triple-A title. There is a lot of fun to be had if you’re into the atmosphere and the story, but even then you cannot miss the clear cracks in the hull of this sinking vessel.
Conclusion
The Sinking City on PS5 may be considered the definitive edition of the game. While we did enjoy seeing this world come to life on our next-generation console, it still left the same aftertaste as during our initial encounters. The game is interesting in its lore, its overall detective gameplay, but becomes bland and stale because you’re running around all the time and just have clunky combat mechanics. If this was a budget-priced game, we would immediately tell you to take the plunge if you’re into games with a proper Lovecraftian atmosphere, but as it stands now, we suggest waiting until the price drops significantly. Again, The Sinking City is not a bad game, we just don’t see many people reach the end before swapping it for another title.
Related Items
2 Comments
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
[…] when watching the early trailers of Reminiscence, it immediately reminded us of a Sci-Fi version of The Sinking City, albeit without mutants. The movie showed us a world where cities were permanently flooded, the […]
[…] people from all around the world. You might know them from previous Sherlock Holmes games or from The Sinking City, which is a Lovecraftian-themed game. For some reason, Frogwares decided to combine these two […]