The original Sinking City was a touch too ambitious for its own good, spreading its supernatural horror mystery across an open world that left it feeling thin. When I played a preview build of the sequel earlier this year, it seemed more focused, the kind of survival horror game with room for exploration within its levels but not an entire town to free-roam around—more like H. P. Lovecraft's Resident Evil than a budget Grand Theft Cthulhu.
But you don't have to take my word for it. During the Future Games Show, developer Frogwares released a one-hour demo of The Sinking City 2, which you can try right now on Steam.
Frogwares also announced a release date of August 18, which will give you time to play it ahead of September's horror games, Silent Hill: Townfall and vampire RPG The Blood of Dawnwalker. Saving your horror game for October is probably a bit passé these days.
There's also a new trailer, introducing the sequel's setting of Arkham. (Which the asylum from the Batman comics was named after.) It's been flooded so you can motorboat around it, as in the first game, and filled with Mythos monstrosities, including zombies with bulging fleshy weak spots to shoot. And, er, a sultry mermaid? Well, I guess all those grotesque fish-human hybrids came from somewhere. (Yes, I have read The Shadow Over Innsmouth.)
