Frogwares, the developers of the Sherlock Holmes game series, has announced a new game today called The Sinking City, and it sounds like a major departure from what the studio is known for.

The Sinking City is described as an open-world investigative adventure set in the Lovecraftian universe. The game was officially announced on their website today and will be showcased at GDC alongside Sherlock Holmes: The Devil’s Daughter. Details are light at the moment, but we expect to hear more following the game’s showing at GDC.

Some of the quotes below have been altered to correct grammatical errors.

According to Frogwares, The Sinking City is “bigger than what we’ve [ever made] and we feel it’s the next step for us, bringing the investigations to be free and open in the city.”

We also believe that Lovecraft universe, Cthulhu Mythos is the right setting for the game. The Lovecraft/Cthulhu setting [has been] dear [to] us for years. In 2016, we’ll celebrate the 10 years of Sherlock Holmes the Awakened, a Sherlockian/Lovecraftian adventure, a game that was seen as a milestone in narrative adventure gaming back then. We are thrilled to be given the possibility to innovate with the games we love. We hope you’ll like it too.

You can read the full announcement post over at Frogware’s official website by following the link.

You can check out the first pieces of concept art for The Sinking City below. Let us know in the comments what you think of the game and if you think Frogware moving to open world games is a good idea. Stay tuned for further updates as we have them by following OnlySP on Facebook and Twitter.