What makes something Lovecraftian? It’s largely seen as creating a sense of dread, the fear of the unknown, or a descent into madness, but I reckon Dennis Denuto was onto something when he eloquently argued in The Castle – “It’s just the vibe of the thing.” Sure, he was a lawyer arguing that his client shouldn’t be forcibly evicted from his house, but that situation would certainly create a sense of dread, fear of the unknown, and send any homeowner mad. Now I’m not saying The Castle is a Lovecraftian film, but I’m also not saying it isn’t. The point is that the beauty of Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos and eldritch horror themes and what makes it so popular is that it can be adapted in many ways, and it’s hard to think of an author whose works have permeated video games more than H.P. Lovecraft – I mean, Lovecraftian is its own horror sub-genre after all.
French developer Big Bad Wolf (developer of one of my favourite games The Council) is the latest team to put its own spin on Lovecraft’s works in its upcoming first-person investigative title Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss. Set to launch on April 17, I got to play the game’s first few chapters to see if it passes the vibe test.
In The Cosmic Abyss, you’re Noah Williams, an agent for Ancile, an international organisation that investigates anomalous paranormal activity and contains unconventional threats. It’s the year 2053, and the world’s resources on dry land were either in very low supply or exhausted, meaning that humankind needed to adapt if it was to survive. Cities became more efficient, the reliance on technology increased, and the search for resources saw corporations plunge into the ocean’s depths – some deeper than others.
Noah’s journey starts in Arkham with his partner and mentor Elsa, as they search for Mei, a colleague who has gone missing. Their investigation takes a turn when they discover that Mei had been deep into some wild research, with her house consumed by her findings and something otherworldly. This scene, while setting up the game’s premise, introduces us to some of the gameplay mechanics.
Noah and Elsa are joined by Noah’s AI companion Key, which will assist with their investigation. One of the ways Key helps is by analysing clues and seeing if there are any more similar nearby. How this works is through Sonar frequency, where Noah can select up to three frequencies at once to search for items with specific characteristics. Strewn about Mei’s lodgings are several…rocks, and by analysing a rock you can search for its properties, for example, mineral. So hypothetically, if you needed more rocks with minerals, you would select that frequency and use the Sonar pulse function that will highlight anything nearby that is a match. Think of it like Eagle Eye in the Assassin’s Creed games.
After the events of Mei’s house play out, Noah is sent on a mission to investigate a missing team of miners from an Ocean-I operation deep in the Pacific Ocean. Turns out, all the digging and drilling may have unleashed something sinister, with Pit Station now abandoned and showing multiple signs that something bad has happened – dead bodies and blood relatively clear indications in that regard. Plus, the vibes are off, and something is playing funny buggers with Noah’s head.
Much like Big Bad Wolf’s past games, Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss requires players to explore their surroundings, search for clues, make deductions and solve puzzles. In order to make deductions about what is going on, you’ll need to piece together clues in the Vault. If you’ve played Frogwares’ detective games, the Vault will feel very familiar to the Mind Palace. All you need to do is drag clues that you think are linked together and it’ll either be right or wrong. But this won’t always mean progress, instead it will simply tell you what you must do next.
Before Noah can go looking searching the Pacific for the missing crew, the power needs be restored so that the system can reset. Once again, your Sonar comes in handy to identify the items you need to power back on, but that’s not the only new trick you learn, discovering that you can inject a mushroom of sorts to replenish your energy, which is used when analysing clues and finding new frequencies.
Once the power is restored, the system needs some time to reboot. So rather than waiting around, Noah decides to go for a dip, and soon finds himself in a mysterious labyrinth where the Ocean-I team may have found more than they bargained for. This is where things start to feel a bit more Lovecraftian and the potential of the Cthulhu Mythos’ influence on the narrative starts to show.
For the sake of spoilers I’ll keep this brief, but after a bit of exploration, three things are apparent. Firstly, something with really sharp claws has done some damage, Noah is going in circles trying to find ‘the city’ that Ocean-I speaks of, and to find the way through the maze, we’ll need to head back to Pit Station to understand how we do so. Now that the power is on, we can access the system and new areas of the station. After reading and watching the crew’s logs, we learn that Ocean-I was searching for a sunken city known as R’lyeh, and a way to unlock a path to it.
This requires cracking the preview’s most complex puzzle, although it’s pretty simple stuff. Using your noggin in the Vault, Sonar, and a keycard you’ll find onboard, the solution becomes obvious. While I do like games that don’t let the puzzles slow down the narrative, I couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed by the puzzles thus far. It’s not that they were bad – the idea of using Noah’s tools to find answers is pretty neat. It’s more that the puzzles have mostly been for rather mundane results – such as turning on the power. In saying that, there are two difficulty options: Investigation and Exploration. The latter, which I played the preview on, makes thing a little easier by allowing you to ask Key for some guidance and reduced Corruption (which works as a sanity metre of sorts that I never really got to see in full swing), while the former ups the challenge (although you can customise it to your liking).
Big Bad Wolf has always ensured that decisions and puzzles have had lasting impacts and shaped the narrative. In The Council, the protagonist must open a crypt door by solving a puzzle and putting their arm into a slot to pull a lever. If you get the puzzle wrong, pulling the lever will slice your hand off. Get it right and the crypt door opens with your hand intact. Whatever happens, the decision is final; there is no rewinding time for another crack at the puzzle. While the studio has said that the narrative will have branching choices, I’ve yet to see it in action.
One thing I did find odd was that now and again in dialogue, Noah is given the option to respond, but to do so you must hold a button down to trigger a response before the timer runs out. The problem is that the icon is small and the timer is very short, making it easy to miss if you’re not paying attention. For a studio whose bread and butter is narrative adventures, I was surprised this was designed the way it was.
Running on Unreal Engine 5, The Cosmic Abyss certainly looks the part, with some stunning underwater scenery and great use of lighting, but it isn’t without its problems. Given it’s a preview build, I’m not going to condemn the devs for the bugs and issues I encountered. I just hope it’s all smooth sailing when the game launches in April.
As my preview played out its final moments in the city of R’lyeh, I concluded that although the game’s early moments hadn’t wrapped their tentacles around me, I was nonetheless incredibly intrigued about where Noah’s journey was heading. It’s less horror than I was expecting, but Big Bad Wolf’s rendition of Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos is perfect for the studio’s investigation mechanics. And truth be told, Lovecraft would be proud of the vibe that the studio has created.
Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss lands on PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC on April 17 (April 16 global).
Previewed on PC using code provided by the publisher
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