Do You Need to Play The Sinking City Before The Sinking City 2?

Why it is genuinely standalone

Do you need to play The Sinking City before 2 to follow any of it? No: different protagonist, different city, different case, different genre. Calvin Rafferty is a Boston private investigator whose ritual with the Book of Dreaming left his lover Faye comatose beneath the Night Shade — a self-contained premise that the game explains as it goes.

There is no prequel recap to catch up on, and no story connection you have to trace. The first game followed a different investigator in a different flooded town. What the two share is an author, a mythos and a mood, not a plot you need to have followed.

What playing the first game adds

• Tonal familiarity. You will recognise how Frogwares handles Lovecraft: restrained, more interested in dread and social decay than tentacles.
• Setting texture. The wider world of drowned New England makes more sense with the original behind you.
• Contrast. Playing them back to back makes the sequel's design choices legible — the sequel is a deliberate answer to the original's sprawl.

None of that is required. All of it is nice to have.

What the sequel changed

If you only play one

Play the sequel. It is the better-built game — 84 on Xbox Series X against a divided reception for the original — it is shorter, and it does not require anything from you first.

If it lands well and you want more of the world afterwards, the first game or its remaster is a reasonable follow-up rather than a prerequisite. See remastered versus the sequel.

Starting the sequel cold

Four things worth knowing on day one, none of which the first game teaches you:

• ERC crates need activator pens.
• The stomp finishes downed enemies, not melee.
• Talents unlock at the third safe room, paid for with investigation currency.
• There is no chapter select.

The full list is on the beginner tips page.

If you played the first game years ago

You need no refresher. The sequel does not reference the original's cast, city or resolution in any way that requires memory of it, and the systems are new — the Investigation Space is not a renamed version of anything from 2019.

What may catch you out is expectation. If you remember the first game as a place to wander and investigate at your own pace, this one will feel narrow for the first hour before its own structure becomes clear.

Is a third game planned?

Not announcedFrogwares has announced no sequel, DLC or season pass for this game. What exists today is the campaign, the Premium Edition's Holloway Manor mission, and Ex Oblivione Mode.