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Years-long dispute with publisher now over
Frogwares is “now the sole publisher of The Sinking City on all platforms”, says the developer. This brings to an end several years of uncertainty and litigation, which saw the Lovecraftian RPG delisted from Steam several times and at one point restored by its publisher via an allegedly pirated version of the game.
The downside is that an updated version of the game is coming to all storefronts in the coming weeks and it won’t be compatible with old save files.
“Due to a number of technical reasons, your old saves won’t be compatible with the new version. Don’t worry though, when you launch the game, you will have the option to keep playing the old version if you want to finish it,” says the announcement by Frogwares.
The old version will only continue to be available for a limited time, however. “Please, consider finishing your playthrough before February 28, 2024,” say Frogwares.
The Ukrainian development studio say they’re also planning on releasing new DLC, called Merciful Madness, which will only work with the new version of the game. Frogwares will make “prepared saves” available when the DLC launches so players can skip directly to the new quests without needing to replay the entire game.
The Sinking City was originally released in 2019, developed by Frogwares and published by Nacon (formerly BigBen Interactive). Not long after release it was removed from stores, with Frogwares alleging that Nacon had failed to provide agreed funding during development and were withholding royalties post-release. Nacon denied the allegations.
A court then ruled that, while litigation regarding the alleged breach of contract was ongoing, the game must remain on sale, causing it to return to Steam but with the caveat that Frogwares didn’t want you to buy it. The developers say they didn’t make the version that was now being sold, which was missing features – such as cloud saves and achievements – that were present in the initial release. Frogwares later alleged that Nacon had pirated the game in order to re-release it. Nacon said that they had “organised the release so that fans on Steam can enjoy the game.” Frogwares responded by sending Valve a DMCA request to have the game once again delisted from Steam.
The Frogwares announcement does not mention Nacon or these disputes at all.
Oddly, The Sinking City is not the only game published by Nacon to be embroiled in a delisting saga. Tabletop-derived RPG Paranoia: Happiness Is Mandatory was pulled from sale just months after launch, also in 2020, seemingly due to a DMCA request by the IP owners. The game quietly released on Steam two weeks ago, nearly four years after disappearing.
Is The Sinking City a game worthy of all this drama? Well, not really, as our Sinking City review explains.
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