Ukrainian studio Frogwares has announced The Sinking City 2 as part of the Xbox Partner Preview. The game will be released on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S in 2025.

The new installment slightly changed the genre from a detective adventure with horror elements to a survivor horror with a greater focus on shooting and monster battles. The studio also switched to Unreal Engine 5.

“The Sinking City is one of our most successful titles, because of our stronger horror genre leanings and the setting. For us, it was kind of a breakthrough, and we are super excited to work on a full-scale horror game. We have created quite a few detective adventures in the past, so now we’re going to mix things up to keep doing what people love from us – meaning story-rich experiences – while still being able to evolve,” said Frogwares Head of Publishing, Sergey Oganesyan.

The game will take place in America in the 1920s, at a time when the country is completely switching to steam engines on the eve of the First World War. At the same time, not all cities in the country are doing well, as Arkham, a city well known to fans of Lovecraft’s work, has fallen victim to an invasion of unknown supernatural creatures.

The game will also feature a new protagonist, but the developers haven’t said much about him or other aspects of The Sinking City 2’s plot. Hovhannisyan only said that they wanted to create a game where everyone can have a completely new experience and that doesn’t require knowledge of the first part.

The biggest change in the second part will be a new combat system and survival and exploration elements. The design of levels, enemies, and the plot were created with a greater focus on the horror genre. But despite this, the detective component hasn’t gone anywhere either, although it is no longer mandatory.

“We’ve never shared this before, but we were in the early stages of pre-production on The Sinking City 2 when the war broke out in Ukraine in February 2022. This forced us to put all that work indefinitely on hold. Now that we know what we are capable of handling, have adapted to the situation as best as we can, and taken all the measures to ensure the stable workflow of our studio, we felt it was time to start up The Sinking City 2 again,” says Oganesyan.

Frogwares has also launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise more money to implement features that the studio doesn’t currently have the resources for, such as more boss fights, insanity mechanics, and more. You can support them on the Kickstarter page.

Also, don’t forget to add the game to your wishlist on Steam, Epic Games Store, GOG, and PlayStation Store.