Frogwares finally regained sole control of The Sinking City in January, after years of dispute, and have wasted no time in now revealing a sequel, with an upcoming Kickstarter campaign for a "safety net", coming in 2025. The new and extremely damp survival horror game, set in a heavily flooded New England city in the 1920s, is pivoting the studio to a "'horror-first' focus with gameplay primarily built around combat, exploration and its Lovecraftian setting and story". This is a step away from the studio's mainstay, the Sherlock Holmes detective games, and I am uncertain about the choice. But let's peer through the weeds a bit further.
]]>Frogwares is "now the sole publisher of The Sinking City on all platforms", says the developer. This brings to an end several years of uncertainty and litigation, which saw the Lovecraftian RPG delisted from Steam several times and at one point restored by its publisher via an allegedly pirated version of the game.
The downside is that an updated version of the game is coming to all storefronts in the coming weeks and it won't be compatible with old save files.
]]>This morning, Russian armed forces began an invasion of Ukraine. Several Ukrainian video game studios have posted public responses to the invasion, with a range of sentiments.
]]>Lovecraftian detective game The Sinking City has been on and off Steam multiple times lately due to an ongoing dispute between developers Frogwares and publisher Nacon. Earlier this week, Frogwares accused Nacon of pirating the game in order to release it on Steam and issued a DMCA notice to Valve to get it removed from the storefront. Nacon have now responded, saying that they have acted within the rights of their contract to make a version of the game available for sale on the store.
]]>Update: Frogwares have issued a DMCA takedown notice to remove Nacon's version of The Sinking City from Steam. More below. (Original story from March 2nd)
The Sinking City developers Frogwares have accused publisher Nacon of pirating the game and allegedly uploading an illegal copy on Steam. Nacon published a version of the Lovecraftian RPG on Valve's storefront on Friday, which was quickly followed by Frogwares urging fans not to buy it. The two have been embroiled in a messy legal dispute over the game since last year. Now, the developers believe Nacon "cracked, hacked, changed the game's code and content" in order to put it on Steam and allegedly prevent Frogwares from earning money from a game they claim they own.
]]>After disappearing from digital storefronts last year, Lovecraftian RPG The Sinking City has returned to Steam. However, developers Frogwares have warned fans not to buy it, because it supposedly isn't the version of the game they made. It seems as though the current Steam version was put on the platform by Nacon, The Sinking City's publisher, who Frogwares have been in a long and messy legal dispute with over the game's ownership.
]]>Lovecraftian RPG The Sinking City is available to buy again, after an ongoing legal dispute between developers Frogwares and publishers Nacon saw it removed from digital storefronts back in August. According to a statement from Nacon, the dispute is still pending in French courts. But, for now at least, The Sinking City is back for sale on Xbox One, and will be available on Steam and PS4 again soon.
]]>Update: Nacon have said they "emphatically" reject Frogwares' open letter, claiming they are attempting to "discredit Nacon in the eyes of the public and professionals alike". Read the full statement below.
Over the last few months, The Sinking City has been disappearing from digital storefronts. In an open letter published today, the game's developers, Frogwares say they've been going through legal disputes with publishing company, Nacon (formerly Bigben Interactive), over funding and copyright issues with their Lovecraftian RPG.
]]>Picture Cthulhu and his tentacled cohorts, dark and dreaming beneath the waves. H.P. Lovecraft’s crooked astral vistas - wrought out of cosmic despair, fear of the unknown, and his racism - have saturated games for better and worse. As hypnotic as his nightmare visions are, the same tropes regurgitated at face value have become dry and tired. It’s been done, and it’s steeped in its author's bigotry.
Which makes recently re-released text adventure Anchorhead a rare game: one that takes the mantle of Lovecraft and forms it into something more than the sum of its sticky, sprawling parts.
]]>The Lovecraftian detective-o-horror RPG The Sinking City launched today, inviting us all to leave this glorious heatwave and venture into a half-drowned city where things lurk in the flooded streets and even on dry land people have a touch of that Innsmouth look. It's, like, okay, according to Alice Bee's The Sinking City review. Despite her hesitance to recommend it, I am still curious. Not many fancy 3D games let us wonder around cursed cities so I have a soft spot for the ones we have.
]]>There are many types of rain. As we speak, the south of England is blessing us by alternating sunshine with heavy showers that are refusing to turn into a storm. Instead of clearing the air, the rain is only making it more humid. In 1920s Oakmont, the fictional town in new Lovecraftian detect ‘em up The Sinking City, the flavour of the day is constant cold mizzling, blowing into your face and impregnating your clothes. You know when a rain makes you feel mildly damp to your core? The Sinking City captures that perfectly. Private Investigator Charles Reed, his face itself like a wet Wednesday afternoon, never looks totally dry.
]]>I sometimes announce, to rooms at large, that I wished Assassin’s Creed Odyssey wouldn’t tell me what to do as much, and let me just explore. Imagine my shock, therefore, at the reveal of The Sinking City, a Lovecraftian detective game releasing just the other side of E3, promising “zero hand holding”. No objective markers on the map, and no trails on the street to follow - just your own wits.
“In The Sinking City we have a map, and every street has a name,” said Waël Amr, the CEO of developers Frogwares. “The evidences tell you that the cross road on this street and this street -- you have to physically go there, and you have to find the house, the place, the person that you're looking for there.”
]]>Epic Games are getting serious about going head-to-head with Valve with their store, and have the war-chest to prove it. They've just announced a slew of exclusives, including Obsidian's highly anticipated The Outer Worlds, and Remedy's upcoming horror shooter Control. Frogwares's cthulhoid detective mystery The Sinking City will be making its debut on the upstart storefront too. This is on top of Epic's surprise announcement that Quantic Dream's formerly PlayStation-exclusive library is coming to PC via their store. See the list of announced exclusives below.
]]>After strange aeons kipping in the bath, Cthulhu surely won't mind lying in another few months before getting up for The Sinking City. Developers Frogwares today confirmed that they have delayed the launch of their Lovecraftian open-world detective RPG by two months, pushing it back from March 21st to June 27th. They say it's to escape the crush of games that have come out recently and continue to come, and that it'll be nice to have a little extra time to polish it anyway.
]]>It's hard enough being a private eye when the world makes sense, but when there's fish-men on every corner, weird cults and magic involved, investigating crimes in The Sinking City looks tricky. It's a challenge I'm eager to try my hand at, though, after seeing the latest chunk of footage from Frogware's upcoming survival horror detective adventure. There's clues to find, but no prompts popping up saying you've cracked the case - the player gets to decide when they've built up a strong enough profile to accuse a suspect. Take an investigative peek for yourself below.
]]>Lovecraft seems to be the theme du jour at the moment. 2018 trends: pair tailored suits and details inspired by fetish wear with cosmic horror and old school '20s racism. I saw probably the two most prominent games inspired by Lovecraft at Gamescom, Frogwares' The Sinking City and Cyanide's Call of Cthulhu (though there were others, including a turn based, tactical affair called Stygian: Reign of the Old Ones). I was going to do separate posts about them, but then I realised I would just be reusing the same jokes about Lovecraft. So instead I'm going to smash them together, and make them fight in a playground in my own head.
]]>It’s time for Gamescom, the yearly show in Germany. There are lots of games here. Too many for a lone operator. We’re going to have to send a whole unit. That’s where you come in, members of the elite RPS podcast. Four of you are going to Cologne. We’ve heard reports of Cyberpunk 2077, Metro Exodus, Biomutant, Dying Light 2, Ape Out, Wolfenstein: Cyberpilot and many more colourful adversaries. You’re going to have to bring your hottest takes. Your objective: a special Gamescom episode of the Electronic Wireless Show. Gear up.
]]>The portal to the Dreamlands has yawned open, a once in a millennium event (other than during videogame marketing cycles), and we are at last granted a clearer picture of what to expect from The Sinking City, an open world investigation/shootybangs game based on the Lovecraft mythos, and assembled by Sherlock Holmes studio Frogwares.
So far, they've been a little coy about showing off how things work - although demo builds were on show at Rezzed - but a new teaser and a recent set of q&a vids answer some of the ry'leh pressing questions.
]]>I'm glad to see more of The Sinking City, the Lovecraft-inspired investigative horror game being made by Sherlock Holmes studio Frogwares. Wandering and boating around a half-flooded city to poke into mysteries of terrible and unknowable beings sounds great to me. I've not heard much from it in a while but, with The Sinking City set to launch later this year, Frogwares are starting showing it at shows. A new developer video walks through the process of creating a show demo - which, as you may or may not know, is rarely as simple as just cutting off a slice of the game.
]]>Here's a pleasing combination of words: Lovecraftian open-world investigation. Roaming around a town where something unspeakable is afoot, trying to solve the mystery without ending up a gibbering wreck? That'll do for me. That's The Sinking City [official site], newly announced by Frogwares. The Ukranian studio, best known for their Sherlock Holmes investigate 'em ups, had been working on a Call of Cthulu game for publisher Focus Home but... well, another studio is doing that. But! Now Frogwares have their own Lovecraftian game, and this does actually look more interesting.
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