The Biggest Surprise Is How Different It Is From the First Game
2019's The Sinking City was primarily an open-world detective adventure — players gathered evidence, reconstructed crime scenes, questioned characters, and drew conclusions without always being told which answer was correct. Combat existed, but it was never the game's strongest feature. Frogwares itself now describes that original as an open-world detective game with horror "around the edges," and for the sequel, the studio deliberately moved exploration, pacing, and combat to the center. That's a deliberate genre shift, not a cosmetic upgrade. The sequel is also a standalone story rather than a direct continuation, following new protagonist Calvin Rafferty, an occult adventurer trying to save his partner Faye Bennett after a failed ritual leaves her soul trapped in the Dreamlands.
