LOVECRAFT ACTUALLY
Investigate an eldritch mystery in videogame The Sinking City
There’s a good chance you’ve read a story by master of horror HP Lovecraft, but stepping inside one for Lovecraft-inspired detective game The Sinking City is a different kettle of (freaky) fish. Playing as former US Marine turned private eye Charles Reed, you head to the city of Oakmont to find out the truth behind your strange dreams of tentacled things terrorising a city. Its inhabitants are trudging on despite being in the grip of a bizarre flood that’s turned streets into rivers, infesting them with strange, unknowable monsters. Naturally, Reed ends up unravelling a plot involving a cult and forbidden secrets that threaten not just the city, but the wider world.
“In a way the detective gameplay has evolved from [our] Sherlock Holmes titles, but the finer details are different,” says Wael Amr, CEO of developer Frogware (they’ve made several well-received Sherlock games over the years). “You have to look at the map itself, find where you need to go with the pinned evidence and [use] our world’s intelligent system to find further information.”
In other words, it’s up to you to follow the clues: pursuing a lead to a police station or researching the local newspaper’s archives. There’s plenty of places to find hints, such as talking to the curious cast of characters (including an extremely rich ape man, and the city’s half-fish population), but it puts the onus of investigation on you, which makes playing as a detective feel very satisfying.
“The Lovecraft work is about the insignificance of the human being inside the universe, but that makes the topics universal,” explains Amr. “It’s always been fascinating for me to look at this literary work that takes place in reality.” OT-K
The Sinking City is released on PS4, Xbox One and PC on 27 June 2019.