The Sinking City: Merciful Madness

The first game was atmospheric, but not really scary. Here's hoping the sequel gets it right.

The first Sinking City was an ambitious swing for developer Frogwares. It was open-world, featured a massive, flooded city to explore, had loads of side quests, and made an--albeit flawed--attempt at third-person horror action. All of that wove together with the studio's signature detective-mystery roots to make an experience that wasn't very good, but was at least worth trying or paying attention to.Before The Sinking City, Frogwares had iterated on the deduction mechanics of the detective genre one Sherlock Holmes game at a time, sprinkling in influences from other genres along the way, from

The Sinking City 2 has made big changes in the hopes of capitalizing on the untapped potential left to float in the void in the first game. A better, more interesting protagonist; a revamped and easier to parse investigation system; and better-paced missions might help this eldritch sequel rise above clever curiosity for fans of tentacle-tinged horror and into must-play territory for everyone this time around, so long as it’s not held back by the underwhelming combat and puzzles that nagged the previous game and don’t seem to be fully solved here just yet.

The showrunners discuss how their spinoff of the alt-history sci-fi series explores the secretive Soviet space program.

Shoutout to moms.