The exact prejudice that fueled Lovecraft’s understanding of the world around him is used here to demonstrate just how awful such a society would be. Oakmont is often described as a “city on the rise,” but the dilapidated architecture and rising anxiety of its people tell a different story. He believes the disappearance to be the work of Innsmouthers-a caste of amphibious islanders he sees as “fish-faced, filthy migrants.” Throgmorton himself is subject to prejudiced descriptors as well, for his apelike appearance. The uptight magnate first tasks Reed with finding his missing son. That terror, for the author, was directly fueled by racism.Īnd so, in Oakmont, characters are made aware of their differences in a way this genre typically doesn’t allow. The “nightmarish terrors” that he described at the bottom of the sea, crawling their way to the surface are viewed exactly the same way he thought about people of color. Part of what makes Lovecraft’s fiction compelling to readers after all this time is the existential dread expressed in facing down an unknowable evil. Video games, though, have had a particular reverence for Lovecraft, often adapting the substance of his work selectively-keeping the sleepy East Coast towns haunted by ghoulish abominations from the sea, while ignoring any of the obvious prejudice in his characters.īut The Sinking City is brutally honest about the nature of Lovecraft’s work. Even Alan Moore addressed how central hate has been to Lovecraft’s stories in his comic series Neonomicon. In The Ballad of Black Tom, Victor LaValle repurposes racist tropes as a rapid revenge plot against the author himself. Matt Ruf’s Lovecraft Country boldly tackles the exact bigotry expressed in his worldview. More recently, creators have pushed back on the notion of Lovecraft’s overwhelming canonization. Everything from Alien to Zelda pays overt homage to the Cthulhu mythos crafted in stories like At the Mountains of Madness and others. But the influence his works have had can be traced through too many modern cultural touchstones to count. Lovecraft’s rampant racism, isolationist perspective, and backwards worldview have been well-documented time and time again. Lovecraft as a merely a “problematic figure” in literary history is wholly dishonest. This game’s ambitions aren’t only demonstrated by the scope of the city, but in narrative resistance to Lovecraft’s worst tropes. Thankfully, Frogwares didn’t just show up to pay tribute to the author. In this way, the world captures what it might be like to inhabit a Lovecraft story. This means looking at every building, watching for notable monuments, and tracking the distance traveled in any cardinal direction. Players must commit the very geography of Oakmont’s intricacies to memory. The Sinking City demands astute observation-in everything from vague suspect descriptions to the intersection of street corners. Every letter, sign, or article you come across could contain a clue on where to investigate next, and you’ll only find them by paying close attention. This comes to life in a growing casebook, where the game tracks Reed’s progress through shorthand notes and detailed documentation. No matter how big or small the investigation, you must do it yourself. Where The Sinking City shines is in the elimination of any simple solutions. ![]() Noire, and even clever case-building puzzles that reminded me of last year’s excellent Return of the Obra Dinn. There’s a simulated super-sense à la Arkham Asylum, witness interrogation inspired by L.A. Systems similar to other detective games are at work in the bulk of The Sinking City’s mission design. In choosing a wider, open setting, Frogwares has built a city that feels dynamic to explore, as if it were itself alive. Oakmont is at once sprawling and oppressive: a dense, deliberate labyrinth stuffed full of intertwined plot threads and copious references to Lovecraft’s mythos.Īs Reed, players are tasked with solving the city’s ongoing hysteria and assuaging the concerns of a vast cast of curious characters. ![]() Lovecraft’s fiction, that’s the intent.įrogwares’ previous work has directly adapted Sherlock Holmes stories, bringing them to life with delightful detective mechanics and solid audiovisual presentation.īut The Sinking City is strikingly more ambitious than anything else in this studio’s repertoire. While this may sound familiar (possibly generic) to even the most uninitiated reader of H.P. So begins The Sinking City, the latest adventure game from noted developer Frogwares. ![]() And the townsfolk seem to have been put under a frightening, violent curse. City streets are flooded with fetid, brackish waters. Oakmont, reeling from a natural disaster, has been partially lost to the sea. Reluctantly, he finds himself traveling to Oakmont City, a destitute metropolis whose people reportedly suffer the same phenomena. Detective Charles Reed is plagued by apocalyptic visions.
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