I've only recently begun to dip my toe into the waters of Lovecraft and Cthulhu mythology, having been sent copies of the Sherlock Holmes vs Cthulhu trilogy to read by Titan Books. Thankfully, I was drawn to these books through my love of Sherlock Homes, and quickly found myself become drawn to the Cthulhu mythology presented there. I began to read through the collected works of H.P. Lovecraft, and whilst finding a great deal of his work to be very much a product of their time and filled with uncomfortably racist views and words, the underlying storytelling was incredibly interesting, and I enjoyed what he had made. As such, I found myself drawn to the Cthulhu mythos presented in other media too, especially video games.
The Sinking City is one of the most recent games to draw upon the works of Lovecraft, and presents players with an open world to explore.
Players take on the role of Charles Reed, a former U.S. Navy diver during World War One who has since become a private investigator. Prior to the events of the game Reed was stationed on board a ship, the U.S.S. Cyclops, which sank under mysterious circumstances. Ever since he has been plagued with strange visions, and has gained unusual abilities of observation that help him with his cases. Reed is drawn to the flooded city of Oakmont to investigate the visions that have been plaguing him, and others who have travelled to Oakmont.
The Sinking City is essentially a detective game, where players are sent on various cases across the city in order to unravel the larger mystery. I was thrown by this at first, as the game doesn't hold your hand after taking you through the first case. You're told where you need to go, and then that's it. The whole city is yours to do with as you wish.
Unlike a lot of other games that are set in a large city none of these areas are initially shut off to you or filled with high level enemies that prevent you from exploring, like in Grand Theft Auto or Assassin's Creed games. You can travel from one side of Oakmont to the other, finding important buildings and landmarks, and unlocking fast travel points, something that actually made the rest of the game a lot easier.
I found myself doing this a lot towards the beginning of the game, and picked up a number of optional side-cases that kept me busy for a number of hours before I went back to the main story. The cases, both main ones and the optional variety, give you vague hints that you have to work out yourself. You don't get a way-point to travel to, but a rough description of the location which you have to find on your map. Sometimes you have to question people, other times you will have to consult city and criminal archives to try and piece together the puzzle. This gives a big sense of accomplishment when you finally figure out where you've got to travel to, and makes even simple navigation different from most other games.
The crime scenes themselves often require a lot of investigating, and I'd sometimes find myself missing some tiny piece of evidence tucked away in the corner that I needed in order to move the case forward. However, even when you do find all of the evidence the game doesn't tell you the solution, and you have to come to that yourself, piecing together the pieces in Reed's mind palace. Here you can come to your own conclusions, choosing who to trust, who to side against, and how you want the case to end.
These choices aren't right or wrong, and often there are arguments for why each outcome is the right one. Ultimately, you will find yourself drawing upon your own opinions and sense of ethics to decide who the real villains are, and if giving up on your own moral code is worth a easy resolution.
Behind all of this investigation, however, is the story of an ancient evil that is close to awakening, and the role that Charles has to play in its fate. The world of Oakmont is filled with twisted creatures and supernatural forces, some that are competing to free Cthylla from her sleep, and others that have their own agendas.
The world of The Sinking City is seeped in Lovecraftian touches, with side quests, characters, and tiny details all containing nods to both the Cthulhu mythos and other Lovecraft stories. There's Robert Throgmorton, the ape-like gangster who's a nod to the story Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family, the presence of the creepy Johannes Van der Berg who takes inspiration from The King In Yellow, the inclusion of Innsmouthers, just to name a few. It's clear that the team behind the game have a lot of love for the source material, and have chosen to make this a world very much built upon it. It takes the work of Lovecraft and creates a world inspired by it, rather than one that would fit nicely into it such as the 2018 Call of Cthulhu game.
Despite all these things that I enjoyed the game has it's faults. The combat isn't brilliant, and sometimes I'd end up killed because of clunky controls or bad camera controls that meant I got backed into a corner with no way out. Occasionally things wouldn't load properly, and I'd occasionally have rooms where some of the objects were glowing bright colours, or there would be walls with no textures. I even found myself in an inescapable room once and had to reload.
The game isn't perfect, and has bugs, but I couldn't bring myself to dislike it. There was something about the world that Frogwares had created, and the game-play experience that hooked me. I enjoyed exploring Oakmont, I wanted to solve every side case, and I wanted to see what happened next in the story. The Sinking City might not be one of the best polished games I've played this year, but it was certainly one of the most enjoyable.
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