The Sinking City 2 Walkthrough: Full Campaign Guide

How to Beat The Sinking City 2

You complete The Sinking City 2 by following one main campaign from the starting area to the final confrontation at the Crown Theater. The story is linear: you move through district-sized chapters, solve puzzles, fight bosses, and return to safe rooms to restock. Community walkthroughs consistently describe six main chapters, and this page follows that order.

Two important rules apply from minute one. First, complete every optional case before you leave a district, because some areas lock once you move forward. Second, read every note and codex entry, because safe codes and puzzle answers are almost always written down nearby.

Chapter 1: A New Day

The game opens with Calvin Rafferty at the bedside of Faye, the woman he loves. A ritual went wrong, trapped her soul in the Dreamlands, and malevolent forces stole her body. The opening case, "A New Day", teaches the basic loop: explore the starting area, collect resources, and reach the exit.

This is the tutorial chapter, so take your time. Learn the inventory grid, the investigation menu, and how to search rooms thoroughly. Loot every drawer and locker — ammunition, medicine, and materials are deliberately scarce for the rest of the game.

Chapter 2: The Wake-Up Call

The second chapter opens the university and related areas. This is where optional investigations start to appear, and they are worth doing. Optional cases never gate progress, but they unlock safer routes, hard supplies, and weapon upgrades that change how you survive the next encounter.

During this chapter you can grab the first Inventory Pack. Head for the church, find the Star Key on the corpse near the church gate lever, sneak through the open church wall window to grab an activator pen, and use it to unlock the extra inventory slot.

Part One: The Library Annex

The Library Annex chapter is a classic three-step puzzle chain. You need to get Calvin through the locked library gate to the Annex, and the gate has no power. Gather the electrical fuses from the Radio Store, dock by the "No Trespassing" sign, restore the fuse box, and solve the gate puzzle.

Walkthroughs from TheGamer and AllThings.How agree on the route: leave the house, sail to the closed library gate, find the fuse box dead, collect the fuses, and return. Once inside the Annex, progress continues past the Church area into the deeper districts.

The Fish Market

The Fish Market is the flooded commercial district where the Deep Ones have taken over. It contains two of the game's most famous puzzles. The first is Ezekiel's Sphere: put the Lantern, Eel, Coelacanth, and Angler icons in order to open the safe. The second is the Salt Storage Room, code I-IV-IX-XVI (1-4-9-16).

Inside the Salt Storage Room you will find a Dolorocide Pill and a modification for the Grenade Launcher. The market also hides three Emergency Relief Crates that require E.R.C. Activator Pens, located in the Packing Area, Cold Storage, and Jewelry Workshop.

Devil's Reef Hotel

Devil's Reef Hotel is one of the most complex chapters, with multiple floors, locked doors, and staff keys. The signature moment is the hotel safe, code 2137. GameRant publishes the code directly but also walks through the clue logic so you can solve it yourself.

Work floor by floor: recover the Staff Key from the third floor, unlock rooms 201-203 and the Staff Room, then open the safe in the main room. The hotel rewards careful room-by-room searching, since evidence and lore documents are scattered across every floor.

Akeley Memorial Hospital

The hospital chapter is the late-game gauntlet. You need the Caduceus Key to reach the Isolation Ward, and the Prism puzzle is the centerpiece: carry the prism to all three stations and rotate its rings until the symbols line up with each station's color — blue first, yellow second (with Father Nathaniel's face), and pink last.

The pink station requires the Vertebral Key, Lowe's face, and a boss fight, so restock before you commit. The hospital also hides the Trident puzzle outside the Church: align the snake, three-headed spear, arrow, and horn symbols, then charge the Trident and return it to the church.

Bosses and the Finale

The final confrontation takes place at the Crown Theater, and your choices there determine which ending you see. Community videos such as "All Bosses + ENDING 4K" confirm the final boss stretch runs through the hospital and into the theater. Save before the final choices if you want to see every ending.

For boss fights, the reliable pattern is the same as every tough encounter: aim at the red glowing weak points, keep a retreat route open, and return to the safe room to rearm between attempts. Some fights are meant to be escaped, not won.

Collectibles Checklist

Collectibles come in several categories: Lore Documents, Evidence, Codex Entries, ERC Crates, and safe codes. Mobalytics maintains structured location lists for evidence, lore documents, and ERC crate/pen locations, and Nerdschalk publishes full codex and weapon-part databases.

The general rule is to sweep each district before advancing. Because later areas lock, a missed document usually means a second playthrough. Use the Wiki Hub for location lists and check them district by district.

How the Chapters Connect

The chapters flow as one continuous descent: the surface districts (A New Day, The Wake-Up Call) teach the loop, the Library Annex opens the deeper city, and the Fish Market, Devil's Reef Hotel, and Akeley Memorial Hospital form the late-game gauntlet. The Crown Theater finale caps the descent.

Each chapter assumes you have the tools from the previous one, so a skipped upgrade or missed shortcut has a compounding cost. That is why the walkthrough advice is always the same: finish the district before moving on.

Chapter Difficulty

The difficulty curve is steady rather than spiky. The opening chapters are tutorial-level, the Fish Market introduces the first real enemy pressure, and Devil's Reef Hotel plus the hospital carry the hardest fights and puzzles.

The final boss stretch in the hospital and theater is the peak difficulty, which is exactly where the resource habits from earlier chapters pay off. If you arrive under-stocked, the game offers safe rooms before each major gauntlet — use them.

What to Do If You Are Stuck

If a door will not open or a safe will not take a code, you are missing a clue or a key item. Re-read the documents in the area, open the investigation menu, and check whether a key item is required to make the puzzle readable.

Community guides cover the exact stuck points: the Library Annex fuse chain, the Fish Market symbols, the hotel staff keys, and the hospital prism stations. Search the relevant chapter section above before guessing.

Walkthrough FAQ

How long does the campaign take? Around 10-13 hours on a normal first playthrough, depending on how many optional cases you complete.

Can I return to earlier areas? Some areas lock once you move forward, so finish optional cases before leaving a district.

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

Are the safe codes the same every run? Yes, the puzzle codes are fixed, and they are collected on the Safe Codes page.

What is the hardest chapter? The Akeley Memorial Hospital gauntlet, including the Prism puzzle and the final boss stretch.