The Sinking City 2is a semi-open world survival horror game, which is a pretty big change from its predecessor. Players will explore the world of Arkham while searching for clues and taking on variousmonsters inspired by the Cthulhu mythos. There will be a lot of new features for players to enjoy, such as an entirely new and very detailed combat system with a special wound-body feature that allows players to see what kind of damage has been inflicted on an enemy.
In an interview with Game Rant, Frogwares publishing director Sergiy Oganesyan discusses community support around creatingThe Sinking City 2,designing new creatures, the game world and its secrets, and more.The following interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Taking The Series In A New Direction
Q:The Sinking City 2is going full survival horror as opposed to a detective adventure game. What made you decide to change genres for the sequel?
A:We’re an independent studio that, for the past 24 years, has become synonymous withdetective games. While that’s been great, it has also somewhat pigeonholed us. The industry and player tastes are evolving, and they will continue to do so as long as people are playing. We want to expand both our abilities and our audience now, ensuring the future of the studio. We want to keep doing this for another 20+ years, and to achieve that, we need to take bolder steps.
Q: The combat and survival mechanics have been reworked forThe Sinking City 2. Can you discuss how they differ from the mechanics in the series’ first installment?
A:We’re building our entire combat and survival systemsfrom the ground up forThe Sinking City 2because they are now some of the key mechanics in the sequel.
So, if we’re talking about combat specifically, our goal is to verify it is convincing and satisfying. That includes the usual stuff like punchy recoil, SFX, visual effects that clearly telegraph that you hit your target, enemies reacting in a natural way, getting pushed back or sent flying depending on your weapon, etc. These are the standard things that you expect to see, but when even one element is missing, you’ll surely notice it.
Then, we are taking it up a notch by adding a “wound-body” system that clearly shows where and with what kind of punch a weapon hits an enemy. Usually in games, when youshoot an enemy, the impact points get covered with a blood decal or something similar, but in our case, enemies have a detailed second layer of bones and muscle tissue that will show when a bullet penetrates their skin. This second layer covers the entire body, so no matter where you shoot, you will always have those realistic (and gory) impact effects. That adds to that feeling of satisfaction that we are aiming for.
We are also hard at work designing enemies that require different strategies to kill. And bosses -Lovecraftian monstrosity, quite fascinating in design.
On the survival side, we’ve focused a lot of time and iterations on inventory management, crafting, and balancing supplies. Players will need to scavenge and use what they find carefully because the levels won’t be overflowing with items. There’s a fine balance here—you don’t want players to feel like they have nothing but scraps, but it shouldn’t feel like a feast either. And of course, we are going to have multiple difficulty options.
Q: How do you feel fans of the firstSinking Citywill respond to the changes made forThe Sinking City 2?
A:So far, the reaction has been very positive overall. We surely have questions about the role of investigation, but what’s important is that we’re still offering our original fans something that is quintessentially Frogwares — the investigation tools and gameplay. If you don’t care about the combat, you could lower its difficulty and focus on investigation and secret-hunting, much like you did in TSC1. The original game had plenty of combat, it’s just much better in the sequel.
Investigation in TSC2 is quite fascinating. you’re able to easily have 20, 30, or 40 clues scattered across each map,leading to different mysteries. The key improvement is that most of these clues are optional, meaning you can still solve your cases without having to find all of them. Remember how it was in TSC1? Missing a single clue would get you stuck, unable to progress. Now this problem is solved. You could even come to the right conclusion based on just some of the clues without needing to connect all the dots.
Q: In just the first day,The Sinking City 2surpassed its Kickstarter goal. What would you like to say to fans and backers who’ve made this possible?
A:Our absolute and heartfelt thanks to every single person who backed us. Honestly, it feels like no words are enough to properly express how incredibly humbled we are. In the back of our minds, we had a feeling we’d meet our goal, especially considering the support we saw onour last Kickstarter project,Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened. But reaching our goal so quickly and seeing it continue to grow is nothing short of incredible.
Q: Are there any stretch goals that you are excited about?
A:To be honest, I’m personally most excited about the first two stretch goals we’ve already reached. The first goal was to add more missions or content that would allow players to participate in more investigations, while the second goal was to introduce more visual variety to our base enemy type, the Slithers.
Both of these goals had much of the design and concepts down on paper, but our development team wasn’t sure we’d have the resources to implement them or if there was even a real demand. Now, thanks to the support from our community, we have the green light to move forward with them both.
Check Out The Sinking City 2’sKickstarter
Goals, Features, And Expanding Cthulhu Mythos For The Sinking City 2
Q:The Sinking City 2is set to feature new creatures that expand on the Cthulhu Mythos. Can you walk us through the process of turning Cthulhu Mythos into video game creatures?
A:Everything starts with narrative design, and the obvious part is to thoroughly collect and follow the canonical descriptions that H.P. Lovecraft made. Narrative is the thing that ties everything together. Our team needs to understand the key elements Lovecraft used to ensure our creatures feel like they genuinely belong ina Lovecraft-inspired world. We attempt to answer where this new creature can fit into a Lovecraft “monster hierarchy” and also what its role is in the game. For example, some creatures can be used as enemies (in our case it’s the Deep One and the Shoggoth, among others), some can be bosses, while others are characters, etc.
Then, our concept artists need to visualize the idea based on the input from the game designers, tech and optimization artists, animators, etc. You have no idea how many guidelines and constraints there can be! We have plenty of metrics that guide us through the development - how wide a room is, how fast the main character is, etc., and each monster has to be designed with those in mind. Once we have all that, we can then create a 3D model, optimized for the game, and send it for test animations. If everything is in order, the model is finalized, and the most difficult part begins, creating gameplay.
Q: Likewise, what’s it like working with the Cthulhu Mythos when fleshing out the narrative?
A:The Cthulhu Mythos is not just about weird monsters and creepy designs, it represents a deeply philosophical idea of cosmic horror and our place in the universe. It’s alsoloneliness and isolation, which definitely serve as the foundation for our world-building and level design.
It’s extremely rewarding because there is so much source material to use as inspiration, but you never feel you are tied down to an overly strict narrative, established characters, etc. Yes, there is a lot of set doom and gloom that you need to stick to, but it’s very open-ended in a lot of ways. So much of what Lovecraft wrote left a lot open to interpretation.
Certain creatures are only hinted at or are very vaguely mentioned. If you look online, there are continual debates on people trying to establish a “creature hierarchy,” and while some of it is clear and set, there are many spots where people just simply can’t agree based on written “fact.” There is also a lot of moral gray in the mythos, with some of the creatures not being outright monstrous but they still aren’t anything cute and cuddly either. And this is where we, as a studio, love to write and build stories - where you have this guiding light but the paths you can take are multiple. So long as you respect the source material enough, you can end up creating something that feels different but is also deemed worthy by the super fans whoknow the Cthulhu Mythos well.
Q: WhileThe Sinking City 2isn’t an open-world game, it seems to allow players some degree of freedom. Can you talk about the importance of player freedom inThe Sinking City 2? How does that factor into the experience?
A:I think the biggest feature in terms of player freedom is our optional investigation mechanic, which ties intothe semi-open-world design. InThe Sinking City 2, you can choose to investigate whatever clues you want, and in return, you’ll be rewarded in some way—more lore, supplies, alternate routes, hidden secrets, etc. And so our map is going to have a lot of moments and spots like that. Take the time to dig around, and it will potentially open up something extra for you if you want.
Q: It looks like there are plenty of weapons that you can pick up and use while exploring the ruins of Arkham. How has your approach to weapon design changed this time around?
A:It depends on what you consider plenty. I think so far we have around half a dozen weapons, and our MAIN focus compared to the original is on making sure that each gun feels different. We are also adding weapon upgrades in the best traditions of the genre - you will find those when exploring the game andsolving cases and puzzles.
Q:The Sinking City 2is being made with a different engine than its predecessor. What has the shift to Unreal Engine 5 been like?
A:Switching from Unreal 4 toUnreal 5 definitely came with a learning curve, but once you learn the new tools, you can really appreciate how amazing they are. Games take years to make because everything you do requires optimization - it’s often a very manual and long process.
Here’s the most basic example. Take a single rock that you will place somewhere in the world. Before Nanite, you had to worry about your polycount, and to optimize your game you would have to create a highly-detailed version of your rock (high-poly), then a second much less detailed copy (low poly), and then transfer the detail from high to low poly through normal maps, which fake the micro detail via shading. Then, you would need to create several LODs (level of detail) for the rock because you don’t want it rendered at the same level of detail up close and a hundred meters away. Repeat that process for every single model that requires that approach, and you can see how exhausting that is.
Unreal streamlines many of those optimization processes, and that’s great. Nothing is ever ideal, of course, and there’s an upfront cost associated with those tools, but it’s still more than worth it.
Q: Is there anything that you’d like to add aboutThe Sinking City 2?
A:This is the first time we’re truly embracing community feedback so early in development, and it has already proven invaluable. We know we’re taking a bold step with this game, moving into a genre we’ve only dabbled in before. We’re thrilled to see how many people are supporting us, and it’s exciting to see where our efforts are resonating with fans and where we still need to improve. It’s all part of the process, and we’re excited to continue sharing the journey with our community.
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