The Sinking City 2: How Long to Beat

Chapter-by-chapter timings

These add up to about ten hours, which matches where most reviews landed. Completionist time runs nearer sixteen on a first pass.

What makes the difference between 8 and 16 hours

Searching, almost entirely. The critical path through The Sinking City 2 is short; the optional footprint is not. Three things account for most of the variance:

• Optional investigations. They are the main source of Dream Essence and they take real time.
• Collectible sweeps. ERC crates, inventory upgrades and evidence, chapter by chapter, using the missable checklist.
• Difficulty. A higher setting does not add content, but it does add repeated attempts and more careful, slower play.

Is it too short?

It is shorter than the 2019 original, and deliberately so. The first game was an open-world detective sandbox with a lot of traversal; the sequel trades that for five authored districts with almost no filler. Whether that is a downgrade depends entirely on what you wanted — reviews were broadly positive about the trade, and it is one of the reasons the game launched at $49.99 rather than full price.

Our verdict page covers that argument properly.

Time to 100%

Roughly twenty hours, and it must be split across two runs: Ex Oblivione codices only exist in New Game Plus, so no single playthrough can reach 100%.

The platinum roadmap divides the work — story and reachable collectibles on run one, codices and cleanup on run two.

Where the time actually goes

An honest breakdown of a ten-hour run: roughly half of it is exploration and searching, a quarter is combat, and the remaining quarter is split between puzzles, cutscenes and menu time in the Investigation Space.

That ratio explains why player-reported times vary so widely. Someone who treats the game as a shooter and follows objective markers can finish in eight hours; someone who reads every document, solves every optional investigation and clears every ERC crate will spend twice as long in the same five districts. Neither is wrong — but the second player will have a much easier final two chapters, because talents and supplies both come out of that searching.

Adding Holloway Manor

If you own the Premium Edition, Holloway Manor adds about two hours as a largely standalone mission, and rewards the Bucking Bronco. Played early it also makes the main campaign slightly faster, because a heavy revolver resolves the fights that otherwise eat your ammunition reserves.