Original story:
In a post to Steam, The Sinking City editor Nacon said that The Sinking City version currently on Steam under his name is “an official and complete version” and that the only issue with the release is the lack of Steam-specific content features like cloud economics and achievements – a problem he attributes to the “lack of cooperation” with developer Frogwares.
This comes in response to several complaints from players that the Steam version did not have the features mentioned above, along with Frogwares recently asking players not to buy the game on Steam.
Since then, Frogwares has elaborated its position, attesting that while a legal battle over whether Nacon had the rights to publish The Sinking City was in progress in French courts, Nacon bought a copy of the Gamesplanet game, altered certain elements, such as screens initials and logos to make it look like the game was licensed to Nacon, and then resubmitted to Steam as an official version.
The Sinking City was removed from several stores in August 2020, with Frogwares saying at the time that the publisher had breached its contract with the developer, stopped providing due payments and tried to mask Frogwares’ involvement in game versions and was licensed for distribution . The dispute, which also involves a series of other similarly published Frogware titles, such as the Sherlock Holmes games, has gone to French courts. The decision is still pending.
First released in 2019, we reviewed The Sinking City at launch and found the game appealing in its narrative, although clumsy in certain mechanisms, such as travel and fighting in the open world.
Rebekah Valentine is an IGN reporter. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.
Correction: an earlier version of this story listed Nacon’s response, but it was actually an answer prior to an earlier accusation. We updated the story to reflect this and regret the error.