The Sinking City Remastered Review
Video Overview & Insights
The Sinking City is an open world detective horror game set directly in Lovecraft's works with a nice Remastered edition that came out in 2025. So something like a curated Call of Cthulhu campaign. I was prepared for fishmen, but I wasn't prepared for what other nefarious lads were doing dark deeds in those fishmen alleys.
Sinking City Remastered on GOG - https://gog.la/WETCITY
The Sinking City 2 on Steam - https://store.steampowered.com/app/2825860/The_Sinking_City_2/
This should have been out earlier but there were some YouTube Hang-Ups since this video was troublesome with it for mysterious reasons. Captions will also be up in some hours when I'm sure the tool isn't going to eat them/cause a massive desync again.
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Additional art and thumbnail by: @sneksucks
Ngl I was really interested in getting this game until you said that they disabled motion blur disabling. Either way great video.
Also thanks to HPL for a line @SsethTzeentach
I take video suggestions at mandaloremovies@gmail.com
That sweet sweet sam & max tune
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Lord_Mandalore
00:00 - Intro
Watching this after playing The Sinking City 2 Demo and BOY OH BOY do I prefer how the gunplay and encounters work there rather than The Sinking City 1
01:02 - Remaster
05:13 - Visuals
Coming back for a rewatch now that the Sinking City 2 got announced with a demo. Here's hoping it can take the foundation of this game and improve things to really refine the overall experience.
16:16 - Music & Sound Design
22:00 - A Frosty Welcome (Detective Gameplay)
Funny thing about Lovecraft, while he was heavily xenophobic in his younger years, as he grew, he became less xenophobic. He even married a Jewish woman and I think went back to make changes to his previous work to be less... intolerant. Well, less intolerant compared to the early 1900s, anyway. And before dying, he wrote a letter to himself, admonishing his viewpoints from his earlier years.
31:42 - Open World/Other Mechanics
46:02 - Story
And now the sequel gets rid of all of this and is a bad Resident Evil clone instead
48:41 - Story (SPOILERS)
01:01:33 - Conclusion
Ugh, I just couldnt be bothered when they wanted a Christianity stand-in but Christianity was so offensive that they invented a "Kay" religion just for the innsmouth clone. It confuses things and completely screws with the thematics, and makes the world way to hard to relate to.
Most horror works best when the horror is introduced to familiar cultures and environments where you have some understanding of the status quo.
If you dont know how the "kay religion" works, and if you are at least generally aligned with it, its harder to be upset when its being subverted by the deep-ones or what have you.
01:02:11 - Credits
01:03:20 - Fisk
Huh... Of all the Lovecraft stories for them to reference, Facts Concerning Arthur Jermyn is an... Interesting choice...
And Yes, he looks like a man-gorilla for the exact reasons you thought of first
#lovecraft #gaming #games #pcgaming #sinkingcity #gamereview #thesinkingcity
the sequel is coming too
More User Perspectives
Mandy did you see the Sinking City 2 now has a release date?
@dom2flyy314Imagine if they made the protagonists doubleganger the next games protagonist lol
@SquidmustardI think the twists I least expected in Pathologic were that Vlad Olgimsky was an ape-man, Katarina Saburova was a Deep One, and the real Simon Kain was the friends we made along the way.
@quiplightlyAbsolutely love this game!
@lloydnicholls143955:35 "I know all life being eradicated by the elder gods is inconvenient in all, but have you ever considered not being a hekkin' racist?"
@ninepillarsofsalt10:45 reminds me of my cousin whos a hell of a skateboarder
@zwickhardt2641"I'm pretty sure he's Irish..."-Least racist thing HP could ever say
@kaiko6450Something tells me that this Lovecraft guy isn't too fond of immigrants
@Moon-wn5rmIts good to finally see a game capture what it feels like to live in masschusetts
@Moon-wn5rmQ
@santiagokonstantinides7528"Ma? Whats a publisher divorce?"
"Well Timmy, when two stubborn developers hate each other very very much..."
Those flooded town sections really remind me of Fallout 4 and not in a good way. The further east you went near the coast you could find flooded harbor towns filled with Mirelurks. worst fucking place to visit at low levels.
@Jago9524"Show some damn respec-"
@Gentle_furyTook me a while to remember where that intro music was from. Took me way back. Lol
Goosebumps
I like hororr more for world building and ambience ranther than it actually being scary
@There_Is_No_War_In_Ba_Sing_SeWent into this game with very low expectations and ended up being blown away. Loved it.
@mondoprimeStill waiting for Thief 2014 review…
@ViRatioThe remaster is still junky and poor quality is still the theme. I hate what happens to all HP Lovecraft games.
@HG161-q4wThe phrase "you seem to have a fondness for yellow" activated the sleeper agent programming from my Lovecraft phrase.
That man is either an elder god or about to become the vessel for one, either way run bitch
The monkey man concept is so stupid I cannot take this shit game seriously
@marvelousballWould you be willing to do a video on Dredge at any point, as a bit of a palette cleanser? It's short and would be neat to hear you explain it.
@CorvidOrnn21:53 I heard it lol
@SandwichGamesHeavyNice pricemaster reference
@Pistonslap1312so the monkey guy is wrapped up with the mafia, the kkk, and is gay.
boy that was a mouthfull.
Who's here after sinking city 2 trailer???
@GothPaokiHad to come back to this after they just announced the sequel
@Did_No_Wrongmore like stinking shitty
@TremuosoI only noticed on my second viewing of this video that both the main character and blackwood have scars on their neck that almost look like gills trying to form
@elliejohnson2786Video so goated they decided to announce a sequel.
@JohnDayguy"let me be frank". Oh now he's changing character mid conversation. Solid humor Mandy. 😂
@harrisondavis6338This was a very frustrating game to play through.
Really liked the detective gameplay, hated the survival horror parts.
Interesting cases and small stories and a nonsense overall plot capped of with a 3 way trolley problem with 1 clear right answer.
All the Lovecraft aspects are of course superficial references to the stories instead of even attempting for deeper exploration. (Side note: Having all of these clearly evil cults openly wandering around the city is also very comical)
Short general rant about "Lovecraftian" games:
It would really be great if game adaptations would start focusing on 1 story and it's themes instead of referencing all of them in a sentence and stick a tentacle face into the ending cutscene.
And while I'm at it: Please stop with the world ending threats and the "no good choice" endings. Cosmic horror like most horror in general works best as character studies and looses a lot of potency when the scope is drawn out like that. Lovecraft himself wrote stories with personal threats with implied potential for the fate of the world after all. In the same vein his main characters tended to triumph over their acute peril in the end. Damaged of course but alive non the less.
21:48 that was clever.
@JustinRuta48:29 The worst crime of all: BEING IRISH
@faded_ink3545HI @mandaloregaming / anyone else. Where is the scene from in the end just before the credits at 1:02:09? https://youtu.be/KhhSWx4kk_I?si=tZi5z89jEihfkI5w&t=3729 Thank you!
@sergeyzhukov30134:25 Dr. Zaius Soprano, at your service
@Wolfman038This game definitely screams potential. I'm very excited for sinking City too because it looks like they know what they're doing and they just need the resources and time to make that vision a reality
@captainfachI guess I'm having some sort of bug because my game does not look like yours. I don't know if you had this issue but some indoor areas with lights and even the moon and the Sun are blindingly bright on my remastered
@captainfachOn top of all the jank pushing it away, this game has the most unique atmosphere I have ever seen in a game. I don't think there's any other game even any other lovecraftian game that quite has this atmosphere this half something 1920s barnacle infested city is fantastic
@captainfachI mean the same face/reused npc problem counts as immersion cuz theyre probably all inbred and would have a shallower feature pool.
@AltoStratusX1Every game is either EYE Divine Cybermancy or Pathologic when you break it down
@OxTheHerdzz