The Sinking City 2 Resurfaces With a New Trailer and a Crowdfunding Launch

After a quiet year beneath the waves, The Sinking City 2 has resurfaced with a brand new trailer and an official Kickstarter campaign launch.

Exactly one year after its announcement, the new trailer for The Sinking City 2 gives us our first look at pre-alpha gameplay and the expected focus on Lovecraftian horror first, with survival, and investigation gameplay mixed in that developer Frogwares is embracing as its signature style. The team has also published a developer deep dive with a more detailed look at what the team is planning for combat, exploration, and optional investigation.

Alongside these trailers, Frogwares has launched a Kickstarter today to help get the game over the finish line. In a statement, CEO Wael Amr explained that the Kickstarter funding was necessary due to the ongoing war in Ukraine:

After 3 years of this horrid war hanging over our daily lives, we’ve learned to adapt, though it has never been easy. In 2023 when we released Sherlock Holmes The Awakened with the help of Kickstarter and our loving fans, we built ourselves a safety net that saved us more than once. From power outages and the need for team members to relocate on short notice, to having to pause development for days, this safety net was crucial. Given that The Sinking City 2 is a far more complex and demanding game, we’ve decided to take the same route as before.

Frogwares has faced numerous challenges over the years in its work on both the original The Sinking City, and now its sequel. In addition to the immense challenges of developing games during wartime, Frogwares was locked in a publishing rights struggle over the first The Sinking City with original PC publisher Nacon that resulted in the game being pulled from some platforms back in 2020. Fortunately, Frogwares won full publishing rights last year, and announced it had settled its disputes.

The Kickstarter for The Sinking City 2 is live now, with a target of $105,000 USD.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.