The Sinking City Review - The Year's Best Horror Game?

4. A Unique Open World

And through all this, the game really doesn't hold your hand. It provides a tutorial tab you can access any point, but otherwise allows you to figure things out on your own. New locations and prompts don't crop up automatically, with you instead having to decide what you'll do and where you'll go by sorting through the casebook notes and pinning locations to your map.

It's liberating to be able to look at your own notes and your own map and curate exactly how you're going to approach the world around you through your own measures, lightyears away from the open world markers of games like Assassin's Creed that are oversaturated to the point of ridiculousness.

The strange paranormal elements combined with hard-boiled noir create a truly unique worldview, which is then littered with pulsating half-formed bodies and creatures made of far too many hands.

The Sinking City doesn't just revolve around investigation either though, allowing you to walk the ocean floor on deep dives, become embroiled in shootouts, and research archives for information as you go about your way in the world.