The Sinking City - Drown And Out

The Sinking City is a detective game with a Lovecraftian twist.

- Andy Kelly

Plagued by nightmarish visions of a drowned city and a colossal tentacled beast, private detective Charles Reed travels to the town of Oakmont to find answers. Storms have been battering this once thriving fishing community, cutting it off from the mainland, flooding parts of it, and leaving the rest sodden and dilapidated. And to make matters worse, the locals are deeply suspicious of outsiders. But with the source of these harrowing visions lurking somewhere in the city, Reed has no choice but to get his feet wet.

The Sinking City is a third-person detective adventure set in a fictional version of 1920s New England, inspired by the works of influential (and, yes, controversial) horror writer H.P. Lovecraft. Divers uncover an ancient cavern hidden beneath Oakmont filled with otherworldly statues of cosmic demons, and are driven mad by the discovery—a madness that begins to spread through the city and awakens strange, violent creatures the locals call wylebeasts. The game is divided between solving crimes and shooting monsters, although the gulf in quality between each flavor of play is pretty wide.

Ukrainian developer Frogwares has been making Sherlock Holmes games for over a decade now, including 2014’s magnificent Crimes & Punishments. As such, The Sinking City is a decent detective game— particularly in its use of the blatantly