The Sinking City 2: How to Unlock Inventory Slots in Chapter 2

Carrying capacity is the quiet difficulty setting in The Sinking City 2. The grid inventory fills up fast, and safe house stashes only help when you are standing next to one. The fix is a pair of Inventory Expansion Packs hidden inside Emergency Relief Crates during Chapter 2, and both of them are easy to walk straight past.

Quick answer: Open the E.R.C. crate in the star-marked cell in the church yard (Star Key plus an E.R.C. Activator Pen), then open the E.R.C. crate inside the building past the graveyard door (Graveyard Key plus a second pen). Each crate adds inventory slots the moment you interact with it.

How many inventory expansions exist in The Sinking City 2

There are six Inventory Expansions in the whole game, split evenly across three chapters. None of them are tied to a trophy, but they permanently widen the grid you carry ammo, healing items and crafting parts in, so the earlier you grab them the better.

Chapter	Inventory Expansions
Chapter 2 — The Wake-Up Call	2
Chapter 3	2
Chapter 4	2
Total	6

They all live inside Emergency Relief Crates, and every crate needs a single-use E.R.C. Activator Pen. Thirteen crates and thirteen pens exist across the game, so the maths works out — but only if you spend pens on the right crates in the right order.

Keys and pens you need in Chapter 2

Four items gate both expansions. Two are keys, two are pens, and none of them are handed to you by the main objective marker.

Item	Where to get it	What it opens
Star Key	On a corpse on a wooden platform near the gate lever, outside the church safe house	The star-marked cell in the church yard, and a door on the church’s second floor
E.R.C. Activator Pen (first)	On a table in the corner of the small room beside the church’s main stage, entered through an open window	Any one Emergency Relief Crate
Graveyard Key	On the checkout counter of the store opposite the broken crane	The locked graveyard door in the church’s flooded yard
APH Key	The manager’s office, in the room you fell from	The red-lit room holding the second pen, plus the nearby maintenance door

Unlock the first two slots at the church

Once you reach the church area and find the safe house, step outside and walk straight toward the fences. A corpse is slumped on a wooden platform next to the gate lever, and it is holding the Star Key.

Go back to the safe house door and head outside again, then turn right and hug the church’s exterior wall until you spot an open window. Climb through it. The room is locked from the inside, which is why the window is the only way in, and the E.R.C. Activator Pen is sitting on a table in the corner.

Prompt to pick up the E.R.C. Activator Pen from a table inside the church room — The E.R.C. Activator Pen pickup prompt in the small room beside the church’s main stage. Image: Frogwares

Head into the swampy part of the yard, the flooded stretch where the locked graveyard door sits. Follow the water to the far end until you reach a crashed black car, then take the right-hand path. The cell is on your right, and its door carries a star emblem that matches the key.

Star emblem highlighted on the barred cell door in the flooded church yard — The star emblem above the barred door confirms this is the cell the Star Key opens. Image: Frogwares

Unlock the door with the Star Key, step inside, and use the pen on the E.R.C. crate. Taking the Inventory Packs expands your grid immediately, with no menu equipping required.

Inventory Expanded notification appearing after opening the Emergency Relief Crate — The “Inventory Expanded” pop-up is the confirmation that the extra slots are yours. Image: Frogwares

Don’t leave straight away. The same cell holds a piece of evidence and another lootable item, and there is no reason to come back for them later.

Get the Graveyard Key and skip the Fire Station crate

Push the main story on until you reach the broken crane, which needs gear and fuel before it will run. On the opposite side of the crane there is a store. Wait for the mutated creature to smash the door open, then go in.

The Graveyard Key is lying on the checkout counter. It unlocks the graveyard door back in the flooded part of the church yard, so hold onto it.

Graveyard Key on the store's checkout counter with the take prompt on screen — The Graveyard Key waiting on the checkout counter of the store across from the crane. Image: Frogwares

Follow the route to the Fire Station and collect the fuel. There is an E.R.C. crate on the second floor here, but it only contains a Dream Essence and shotgun shells — no Inventory Packs. Leave it sealed for now and keep your pen.

Finish everything you need at the Fire Station, pour the fuel into the crane’s tank, then take the boat back to the church.

Tip: You can still open the Fire Station crate later. Come back once you have picked up the next pen, so a spare pen is never the thing standing between you and an expansion.

Open the second E.R.C. crate past the graveyard door

Use the Graveyard Key on the door in the swampy yard, then follow the path on your right until you enter a building. The floor gives way as soon as you step in and you drop to the ground level.

Look to your right after the fall. The E.R.C. crate is sitting on a table against the wall. If you saved your pen at the Fire Station, use it here and the expansion is done.

Find the second activator pen with the APH Key

If your pen is already spent, keep following the path in this area until you find a crack in the wall. Crawl through it and you will pop out in the swamp again, still outside the building.

At the end of that path is a storage-like area with a cell in it. The room beyond the cell is lit red and stays locked until you have the APH Key.

To get the key, cross the iron plates laid over the cars, move through the apartment, climb out of its window, and walk the shallow pipes. That route loops you back to the room you originally fell from.

The manager’s office is here, and the APH Key is inside. There is plenty of loot in the area and a safe house nearby, so stash anything you don’t need before moving on.

Head back to the red-lit room with the APH Key. A fresh E.R.C. Activator Pen is waiting there. Return to the crate on the table and open it for the second set of Inventory Packs.

The APH Key has a second use in the same area. It unlocks the maintenance door, and the gear inside is the last part the crane needs, so you are not making a detour for the pen alone.

How to confirm the inventory expanded, and why it might not

Interacting with an opened crate that holds Inventory Packs triggers an “Inventory Expanded” pop-up on screen. Open the inventory menu afterwards and the previously greyed-out slots on the bottom row will be usable. If you don’t see the pop-up, the crate you opened did not contain Inventory Packs.

Two things stop this from working. A crate will not open without an E.R.C. Activator Pen, and each pen is consumed by the crate it opens, so spending one on the Fire Station crate first leaves you hunting the APH Key before you can finish the second expansion. The bigger risk is chapter progression: every collectible is missable and there is no chapter select, so once Chapter 2 ends you cannot go back for either crate.

Before you take the boat out and close the chapter, pull up the map and check that the church yard, graveyard building and Fire Station are all cleared. Backtracking within a chapter is free, and it is the only chance you get.