Has there been a truly great video game set against the backdrop of H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos? Or, rather, let me rephrase. Has there been a standout Lovecraftian game with Cthulhu in the title, because releases that have paid homage to Lovecraft’s special brand of nihilistic, otherworldly horror, from Alone in the Dark, to moody fishing sim Dredge, Doom, Bloodborne, Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened, and even thematic departure Call of the Sea, have fared better. Games that plop “Cthulhu” into their name, however, just haven’t excelled, even if they’re generally not complete duds.

Sadly, new first person investigative horror adventure Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss joins those middling ranks. That said, it features enough ambition and freshness to recommend it, at least to patient puzzle game fans, and the Mythos faithful.

From French developer Big Bad Wolf, the makers of Vampire: The Masquerade – Swansong, and publisher NACON, Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss embraces the science fiction and “cosmic” side of Lovecraft’s work (though not with the hard sci-fi bent of similar Moons of Madness). Eschewing the classic 1920s setting of many Lovecraftian works, the game instead takes place in a near future version of the fictional universe, including sufficient overlap with our reality to give it more credibility.

By 2053, climate change and dwindling resources have powerful corporations and powerful people looking elsewhere for new energy sources. Some have their sights on the stars, but tech magnate Andrew Marsh has turned to the Pacific Ocean bottom. When his mining station goes quiet, your character Noah is dispatched to investigate. This is no normal mission though. As an agent of Ancile, a division of Interpol specialising in occult affairs, you already know that something is very, very wrong. And as you follow Marsh’s trail, you realise that he’s seeking out R’lyeh, the lost sea-bottom city that serves as prison for all-mighty, malevolent entity Cthulhu. It’s up to you to ensure the Great Old One doesn’t wake.

The good

As already mentioned, Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss has quite a lot going for it. The game starts off especially strong, plunging you post-prologue into an engrossing investigation on an aquatic base where madness and something monstrous have run rampant. It’s all very Event Horizon, and overall the game’s mood is quietly ominous, punctuated by disturbing reveals that are less about jump scares and more about feeding players nightmare fuel for weeks. Made with Unreal Engine 5, Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss is a striking-looking game that appreciably explores some of the more alien, lesser known aspects of the Cthulhu Mythos.

On the gameplay front, Big Bad Wolf are also trying something more interesting with their inclusion of familiar mechanics. Though navigating it can be intimidating, The Vault is a “mind palace” repository of all your discoveries (no need for pen-and-paper note-taking), which can be dragged around, connected and used to generate deductions that will help you progress in the game.

Even smarter, the game refines “detective vision,” the environmental scan that has popped up in everything from the Batman Arkham games to Tomb Raider and Assassin’s Creed, all under different names, of course. In Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss, analysing items reveals their base nature, and you can then use your sonar in a more targeted manner to locate the same materials across the game’s mammoth levels. That’s useful whether you’re following a blood trail, or seeking out items made of multiple extra-terrestrial metals.

Finally, the game has an egalitarian attitude to difficulty, while refusing to ever straight-up give away the answers to its puzzles. You can choose between the hands-off default Investigation mode, or select Exploration, where your AI companion KEY can continually be prompted to help, providing three hints that nudge you to each solution. If that’s not enough, you can create your own custom difficulty from various buttons and sliders. The level of challenge is in your hands, with a caveat…

The bad

That caveat? The puzzles in Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss can be obtuse to the point of frustration. On one instance, I found a crucial item by accidentally falling off a piece of scaffolding onto a weakened patch of ground, which led to a subterranean chamber. I also brute forced my way into the next level when there was a secret path to follow. In short, the game demands that you scrutinise every found journal, voice recording and translated ancient tablet, because even the most throwaway comment may contain vital information. The same goes for exploring every corner of every level. Often what seems like the obvious next step towards a solution is tangled in a further layer of convolution.

Challenge is good, but Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss feels like it’s made itself unnecessarily complicated with the fact that most stages can be solved in two ways. One path exposes Noah to cosmic forces and psychological torment, ramping up his corruption level and destroying any ability buffs you may have found. The other route is safer, reducing corruption. The thing is, both approaches are indistinct from one another, typically overlap, and you’ll likely find yourself half solving one, and half the other, with no real, satisfying progress.

For the record, Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss consists of seven chapters, and should take between 10 and 15 hours to complete. Which of the six endings you get will be determined by your level of corruption as the final cut scene starts.

Narratively, Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss also starts to fracture over time, opening up plot holes and turning to illogical behaviour that goes unquestioned. It’s not even a case of Noah succumbing to psychological collapse as you may expect from a Lovecraftian tale. Madness barely features. Rather, it’s that the game abandons its setup, and has you wandering an inert world, devoid of life. Barring the voice of KEY (stilted like much of the vocal performance in the game), allies vanish off screen, and the only people you encounter are dead bodies and dropped tapes. At a certain point, you outrun your target, and, if you’re paying attention, you realise that, to secure a happy ending and keep the world safe, Noah’s best course of action would be to simply walk away from the mission. Which, naturally, he doesn’t do.

As a side note, Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss also squanders fascinating concepts like the mind-bending gravity of Cthulhu’s home world. It features in a single scene and is never explored as a puzzle mechanic.

Finally, there’s the issue of game bugs. This isn’t a deal breaker, as problems can be ironed out over time, but potential players should be aware that Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss is full of maddening visual glitches and performance snags before its Day One patch. Though you can always appreciate the developers’ commitment to offering players something new, the game is a test of patience by default. The addition of crashes and other broken gameplay elements may be too much of a sanity strain on top of that.

Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss releases today, 16 April, for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series consoles.


Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss review

Investigative horror adventure Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss is as fresh as it is frustrating. Clever investigative gameplay mechanics and a superb, immersive start soon give way to convoluted puzzles and an oddly inert world. Plus, it’s extremely buggy.

 6.5
Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss was reviewed on PS5