12 minutes of The Sinking City 2 gameplay shows Lovecraftian horror done right
A Ukrainian indie studio is releasing one of August's most compelling horror games, and it costs less than the competition. The Sinking City 2 from Frogwares launches August 18 on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S, priced at $49.99 — a deliberate $10 undercut of the current AAA standard. IGN just published 12 minutes of new gameplay, and it looks like the studio has earned the attention.
The look
The footage follows protagonist Calvin Rafferty through the flooded, rain-soaked streets of Arkham. Cultist hideouts, decaying architecture, and a handful of creature encounters make up the preview. The monster designs hit the sweet spot Lovecraftian horror demands: genuinely unsettling rather than cartoonishly grotesque. The game runs on Unreal Engine 5, and the detail in environments and facial animation shows — this doesn't look like a $50 game in the way that phrase usually means.
Previews from PC Gamer and Rock Paper Shotgun have consistently compared it to Resident Evil — specifically the tension and resource management of the classic entries. The original 2019 game leaned heavily into detective investigation; this sequel shifts the focus to survival horror, which reviewers say suits the Lovecraft source material better.
The price and the context
At $49.99, the Standard Edition sits below the $60 baseline that horror games like Resident Evil 4 Remake and Silent Hill 2 Remake set. Third-party resellers like Gamesplanet are already offering an additional 10% off US keys, per Rely on Horror. Pre-orders are live on Steam, Epic Games Store, GOG, PlayStation Store, and the Xbox Store.
The pricing strategy is deliberate, and the context behind it matters. Frogwares is a 90-person studio based in Kyiv that has been building this game through Russia's ongoing invasion — power outages, air raid sirens, staff displacement. The studio's publishing director described hitting the pre-order milestone as "surreal" after years of wartime uncertainty, per Gematsu. The game was partly funded through a Kickstarter campaign that raised €554,000.
What to expect
August is a quiet month for big releases, which gives The Sinking City 2 room to stand out. If the finished game matches what previews and the IGN footage suggest, Frogwares has a genuine contender against the genre's established names — at a price that makes it easier to take the risk.
