The Sinking City 2 Beginner Guide: First Two Hours

How Do I Start The Sinking City 2?

You start The Sinking City 2 as Calvin Rafferty, waking at the bedside of Faye, the woman you love. A ritual trapped her soul in the Dreamlands, and now malevolent forces have taken her body. Your goal for the whole game is to descend into the flooded city and rescue her.

The opening hour is a tutorial that teaches the three systems you will use forever: the inventory grid, the investigation menu, and resource-lean combat. Do not rush it — everything you learn in the first two hours carries through the entire campaign.

The Inventory Grid

Your inventory is a limited grid, and that is intentional. Every item takes space, so you constantly decide between ammunition, medicine, materials, and puzzle items. The most common beginner mistake is hoarding everything until the grid is full.

The fix is simple: organize your inventory at every safe room visit instead of waiting until it is packed. Stash loot you do not need immediately, re-equip for the next outing, and leave with a plan. There is no penalty for returning to the safe room — the penalty is dying with a full bag.

Ammo and Medicine Are Scarce

Bullets and bandages are the two resources you will run out of first. The game is deliberately resource-lean, so treat every shot and every heal as a decision. Save your heaviest ammo for elites and bosses, and keep a cheap sidearm for regular enemies.

When you find a new weapon, check which ammunition it uses and match your loadout accordingly. Community guides also recommend always knowing the nearest safe room and retreat path before a fight, so you can disengage, rearm, and come back better equipped.

Aim for the Red Weak Points

Enemies take far more damage from the red glowing spots on their bodies. TheGamer's walkthrough makes this point early: the best way to conserve ammo is to always aim for the red areas, which take more damage than the rest of the body.

Do not panic-fire into the center of a silhouette. Create distance, wait for a clean shot, and focus fire on the weak point. Against the Slither, Deep Ones, and Shadows, this discipline is what keeps your ammo count healthy across a chapter.

Use the Safe Room

The safe room is your base of operations. It is where you stash loot, organize the inventory, and re-equip before each outing. The 9game full-exploration guide calls the safe room the key point for saving, organizing supplies, and recovering between sections.

Make it a habit to return to the safe room after every major encounter or loot run. Leaving with full ammo and a clear inventory is the difference between a smooth chapter and a desperate one.

Travel by Skiff and Unlock Shortcuts

Arkham is flooded, and the fastest way to move is by boat. The skiff lets you cross flooded streets quickly, and unlocked shortcuts behind collapsed seawalls shorten later trips. Both save time and ammunition.

Pay attention to the environment: shortcuts are often hidden behind breakable barriers or locked gates that open with keys found nearby. When you find one, use it immediately to mark the route for future trips.

Do Optional Investigations

Optional investigations appear from the second chapter onward. They never gate progress, but they unlock safer routes, hard supplies, and upgrades that increase your odds of surviving the next encounter. The Steam store description states this explicitly.

The typical beginner mistake is skipping them to "stay on the main story". In practice, the upgrades they provide — including improved guns — make the main story easier. Finish them before leaving a district, since some areas lock later.

Read Notes and Codex Entries

Safe codes and puzzle answers are hidden in documents, journals, and codex entries. If you are stuck on a locked door or a safe, the solution is almost always written down in a room nearby. Read everything, even items that look like filler.

The investigation menu lets you connect clues you have collected. Use it before trying random combinations: the game is designed so that investigation beats guessing.

Unlock Your First Inventory Pack

One of the most useful early upgrades is the Inventory Pack. In Chapter 2, find the Star Key on the corpse near the church gate lever, sneak through the open church wall window to grab the activator pen, and unlock the extra inventory slot.

Do this before you start hoarding materials for upgrades. The extra slot pays off immediately and keeps paying for the rest of the campaign.

What to Buy and Install Before Playing

Before you install, check the official system requirements: Windows 11 x64, 70 GB of SSD space, and an 8 GB VRAM GPU at the minimum tier. The game costs $49.99 on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S.

If you want to test first, the free Steam demo covers the opening hour. Demo progress does not carry into the full game, but the hour is a perfect system and comfort check.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

New players die most often from three mistakes: fighting every enemy, ignoring notes and codex entries, and letting the inventory fill up with junk. All three drain the same two resources — ammo and medicine.

The fix for each is simple: disengage when a fight is optional, read everything before guessing a code, and organize the inventory at every safe room. None of these are advanced tricks; they are the core loop working as intended.

When to Start New Game Plus

Do not start New Game Plus until you have the first clear, the collectible sweep you care about, and the save you want to keep. NG+ carries your build into a tougher run, so a rushed entry wastes the advantage.

The final two trophies require the NG+ run, which makes the second campaign part of full completion rather than optional. Use the first run to learn, the second to complete.

Beginner FAQ

What difficulty should I choose? Most players recommend starting on Normal to learn the resource economy before a higher-difficulty run.

Is the game open world? No — it is a focused, level-based survival horror in the style of Resident Evil.

Do I need to play the first game? No, The Sinking City 2 is a standalone story with a new protagonist.

Is there New Game Plus? Yes — it unlocks after your first clear and carries your build into a tougher second run.

How much does the game cost? $49.99 on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S.