The Sinking City 2 Demo: Steam Next Fest Highlights Performance and Combat Quirks

Performance Stutters Shadow Unreal Engine 5 Showcase

During the recent Steam Next Fest, players finally got their hands on the first hour of Calvin Rafferty’s descent into Arkham. However, community reports quickly highlighted a major technical hurdle: significant stuttering and performance drops.

Multiple players on Reddit noted that even when running the game on capable hardware like an RTX 3060 Ti in performance mode, framerates remained botheringly low. Exploration is reportedly interrupted by frequent stuttering, particularly when entering new areas or just before scripted events occur. Given that Frogwares is utilizing Unreal Engine 5 to power this sequel, community speculation points to shader compilation struggles or early-stage Lumen implementation issues.

While the developers have been upfront about the demo build being work-in-progress, this has raised concerns about the final game’s state. Optimization remains a critical hurdle for Frogwares to clear before the August 18 release if they want to meet their recommended system requirements.

Clunky Melee and Big Glowing Weak Points

Beyond performance, the core gameplay loop has sparked active discussion among survival horror enthusiasts. Players who tested the prologue demo reported a mixed experience with the game’s combat mechanics.

While shooting mechanics are generally described as acceptable, the melee combat has received criticism for feeling clunky and chaotic. Players noted that the encounter design relies heavily on familiar tropes, such as:

• Shooting glowing weak spots to stun enemies.
• Aiming for the legs to slow down fast-approaching threats.
• Exploding red barrels scattered around the flooded environments.

Additionally, some players expressed disappointment with the creature designs, pointing out that regular enemies resemble generic worm-possessed zombies rather than the uncanny, mind-bending horrors expected of a Lovecraftian title. The prominent, glowing weak spots also reportedly break immersion, making the combat feel more like a traditional action-adventure than a creeping horror experience. Players hoping for deeper nuance can read more about these mechanics in our guide on combat and weak points.

Demo Patch #1: What Has Been Fixed So Far?

In response to immediate technical feedback, Frogwares released Patch #1 for the demo. This update attempts to iron out several stability issues that plagued players during the event. The confirmed patch notes highlight:

• Fixes for multiple crashes in various areas of the demo.
• Adjustments to the camera behavior, which previously broke after boarding a boat.
• Rebalanced evidence clues to clarify the safe puzzle.
• General balance passes across the demo’s combat encounters.

While these rapid fixes demonstrate that the development team is actively listening to community input, the larger task of optimizing the Unreal Engine 5 build for various hardware configurations remains. With only a few months left before release, the feedback from this demo will likely shape the final polish of the Arkham experience.