The Sinking City 2 Walkthrough: All Five Chapters

The five chapters

The chapters get shorter and denser as the game goes on. A New Day is the most open; Cold Comfort is a corridor to the finale. That shape is worth knowing when you plan collectible sweeps — the early chapters give you room to wander, the late ones do not.

How the game is structured

This is not the first game's open world. The Sinking City 2 is chaptered, and each chapter is a compact district you can move around freely — on foot and by boat — until a story beat closes it. Inside a chapter you can backtrack as much as you like. Between chapters you cannot go back at all.

Practically, that means the walkthrough for each chapter is written as a route plus a cleanup list: follow the route to progress, then use the cleanup list before you trigger the exit. The full per-chapter version of that list lives on the missable checklist.

What to do before you start

1. Pick a difficulty you will enjoy, not one you will endure. All four modes are switchable mid-run from the pause menu — details here.
2. Learn the stomp early. Melee does not finish downed enemies; the stomp does.
3. Pick up every clue. Evidence is currency — Dream Essence pays for talents.
4. Understand ERC crates now. They need activator pens. This one mechanic accounts for most first-hour confusion.

Bosses and set pieces

There are two named boss fights and a recurring elite. The Shoggoth is a mechanic fight: activate three devices to force its eyes open, then shoot them. Slither Prime, the finale, is the opposite — a straight damage race against a head weak point while it summons help. The Acheronian Juggernaut shows up as an elite threat rather than a scripted boss.

Optional content

Two categories sit outside the critical path and both are worth doing:

• Optional investigations — the game's side cases. They pay Dream Essence, which is the main constraint on your build.
• Holloway Manor — a roughly two-hour side mission included with the Premium Edition that rewards the Bucking Bronco revolver.

How long the whole thing takes

Most reviewers finished the story in about ten hours, with the honest range running from eight to twelve depending on how much searching you do. A completion-focused run lands nearer sixteen, and the platinum — which needs a second playthrough for the codices — is reported at around twenty.

Chapter-by-chapter timings are on the length page.

Using this walkthrough without spoiling the game

Each chapter page is written so you can read only what you need. The route sections describe where to go and what to interact with, and they deliberately avoid describing story beats — cutscene content, character reveals and the finale are either omitted or folded behind a spoiler toggle.

Puzzle answers live on their own pages rather than in the chapter text, for the same reason. If you want to solve the obelisk yourself but you are lost in the churchyard, the chapter page will get you to the obelisk without telling you the symbol order.

The one place we break that rule is the missable list at the end of each chapter, which has to name things you have not found yet. Skip it if you are playing blind and come back before you leave the area.