features that centred on suspects
and investigations, that we created
something that was really appealing
to players. The limits that we were
meeting were cases that were
location-based and not in an open
city. We couldn’t convey the feeling
of a full investigation,” continues Amr.
“Like you go to a crime scene and
discover evidence and clues, and you
don’t know what to do next. So usually
a game guides you, it tells you that,
‘You need to go there,’ ‘You need to
speak with this person,’ ‘You need to
visit this area.’ What we wanted to
do is to develop this concept of free
investigation, that the player is not
told anything and it is up to them to
find their way around the game.”On your own
Unlike most modern detective or
investigation games that have a lot
of hand-holding and give on-screen
clues or hints as to what to do next,
The Sinking City expects you to take
on the role of a real detective. There
are no waypoints that point in the
direction of your next location or
markers on your map. “Inside the
game we have a map and the streets
all have names and this is how you
navigate, like in a real city,” says Amr.
“At one point a guy who was playing
the game told me, ‘In order to get there
you go down this avenue and you take
the third turning on the right.’ It was
at that moment that I realised he was
using the city of Oakmont like a real
city. For him that particular place was
already associated in his mind with a
picture of the street and the name.”
While most of the city is navigated
by foot or boat, it’s all open for you to
explore and you’ll need to rely on your
memory, or even get out a pen and
paper, making your own notes, to find
your way around or just not get lost.
Another departure from Frogwares’
previous games is that you won’t just
be investigating, you’ll also be going
up against strange and grotesque
creatures. Utilising weapons, you’ll
need to display combat prowess in
order to stay alive.
From what we’ve seen so far, the
game has a lot of potential and the
trust Frogwares is giving to players
to make the right decisions in solving
mysteries is a promising one. Let’s
hope it all works out. QLovecraft has been the inspiration
for many games in the past, and in
recent years we’ve seen an influx of
Lovecraftian games, but Frogwares,
the developer behind the successful
Sherlock Holmes adventure game
series, is relying on its experience and
expertise to create something that its
team hopes will be a little different
than all the others.
In The Sinking City you take on
the role of private investigator
Charles Reed, who arrives in the
city of Oakmont, Massachusetts to
investigate a mysterious flooding
that’s befallen the city. Reed, who is
beginning to suffer from some kind
of insanity believes that by solving
this mystery he will rid himself of the
madness plaguing his mind.
Although the set-up sounds
clichéd, the devs are looking to
distinguish The Sinking City from all
the other Lovecraft games out there,
and they’re not making just another
Sherlock Holmes investigation game
with a Lovecraftian skin, either.
“What’s important for us is to create
the best detective game around,”
says CEO of Frogwares Waël Amr.
“With the Sherlock Holmes titles,
particularly with the last two, which
were case-based, we discovered with
the Mind Palace, the detection board,
the character profiles, all of theseLovecraft’s first stab at writing was as a child, however the piece no longer exists today
The Sinking
City
Frogwares latest combines
investigation with insanity-
inducing Lovecraftian horror
Adam Bryant
PUBLISHER BIGBEN INTERACTIVE DEVELOPER FROGWARES
ETA JUNE 2019RULE OF
LORE
Frogwares went
above and beyond for
the game’s lore and
backstory. ’“We
created a history for
the game from a
million years ago up
to the 1920s,”
explains Amr. “We
were thinking about
things like how
Vikings went to this
city, and American
settlers and how they
developed the city,
and what industries
they were starting up.
We actually made
different maps of the
city through the ages
to see how it grew.”
“What we wanted to do is
to develop this concept of
free investigation”
028 THE OFFICIAL XBOX MAGAZINE
PREVIEW