Call of Cthulhu – list of upcoming games inspired by H. P. Lovecraft’s works

When Howard Philips Lovecraft was still alive, his works were appreciated mostly by niche literary magazines and horror aficionados. Wide recognition didn’t come until the second half of the 20th century, when the first motion picture adaptation of his book, The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, entitled The Haunted Palace (1963) made its way to cinemas. To date, countless works inspired by the American master of horrors have been published; among the artists influenced by him are Metallica, Stephen King, H. R. Giger, or Neil Gaiman, so it’s only natural that Lovecraft’s works have also inspired video game developers. Alone in the Dark, Darkest Dungeon, Amnesia, or Dead Space are a few titles that instantly come to mind, but there’s a whole lot more.

We thought it would be cool to herd the most interesting upcoming titles that are set in Lovecraft’s universe or inspired by it somehow. The list contains very serious and ghastly horrors in which the players will face the Great Old Ones, as well as funny adventure games that approach the topic in a more lighthearted matter. In other words – there’s something for everyone. Stay vigilant though; you’re entering the realm corrupted by the slimy tentacle of Cthulhu himself.

Conarium – beyond the limits of sanity

Running on Unreal 4 engine, the game provides high-quality, detailed graphics.

At the Mountains of Madness is one of Lovecraft’s most popular short stories. It was published in the Astounding Stories magazine in 1936, and was followed by several adaptations. Thanks to Zoetrope Interactive, we will receive yet another one, this time especially impressive on the visual side of things.

Due next year, this title developed by Turkish studio is going to be a horror adventure game. Conarium tells a story inspired by the abovementioned short story by the American writer. The events take place in the 1930s, in Antarctica. Playing as Frank Gilman, employee of the faculty of anthropology in a fictional University of Miskatonic, the player will embark on an expedition together with other scientists, who want to transgress the boundaries of human consciousness. This is supposedly achievable thanks to a mysterious device called Conarium. It’s rather obvious that something much worse awaits the scientists, namely an encounter with foul creatures from another dimension.

At the beginning of the game, Gilman wakes up in a research station in Antarctica, and soon enough remembers that the team had managed to activate the contraption and... everybody died. Or maybe even experienced something worse than death, something like coming back into the world of the living with disturbing memories of ominous places. The protagonist will have to look for clues, solve puzzles, and try to find his companions. There will also be some dreams and vision exploration, as well as communication with alternative realities.

Research station?

Conarium looks incredibly interesting. The developers already have some solid experience as the creators of a series of grim horrors entitled Darkness Within, also inspired by Lovecraft. On top of that, the Turks have decided to use Unreal 4, as clearly evidenced by the first screens showing atmospheric, detailed locations. The textures of fear have never been so sharp.

TENTACLE FACTOR: 3/3

Stygian: Reign of the Old Ones – a visit to Arkham

The industrial landscape brings to mind Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura.

Stygian: Reign of the Old Ones is the second Turkish game on this list. Cultic Game’s baby has been financed via Kickstarter, and should be released towards the end of the next year. And it seems to be worth waiting for – we’ll get a classic RPG with hand-painted graphics and turn-based combat.

Let us begin with its twisted story. Stygian will take the players to Arkham, a town that was torn out from our reality and landed in a nasty place in between dimensions. During the game, the players will be able to explore the ruined and haunted location, encountering new references to Lovecraft on every corner. For example, they will be able to make use of the otherworldly violin of Erich Zann, who was the protagonist of a short story entitled The Music of Erich Zann.

Stygian is a game to look out for. First of all, it looks amazing. Hand-painted backgrounds create an eerie atmosphere of the gruesome cosmic disaster that descended upon Arkham. Second, this will be a pure-blood RPG, with combat system inspired by Heroes of Might and Magic. Still, it’s best to avoid fighting, since defeating the abominable creatures will not be easy. The game will also utilize an interesting system of religious beliefs of the main characters; it will influence the amount of mental health and time needed to replenish it (a religious character will regenerate the points by converting another character). Seems we’re in for a Planescape Torment, only much gloomier.

TENTACLE FACTOR: 2/3

A Place for the Unwilling – city of mist

It’s easy to get lost in the fog.

Spanish studio AlPixelGames aims at delivering their game, A Place for the Unwilling, next year. The developers compare their original adventure game to titles such as Majora’s Mask and Sunless Sea, both of which met with positive reviews. Will the game from the Iberian Peninsula be able to match these two?

First, let’s see what this game actually is. According to the studio itself, it will be an isometric adventure game, focused on rich open world. The goal of the developers is not only to create a vast world, but also to fill it with interesting content. There will be only 18 NPCs in the game, but each of them will be meticulously designed. The protagonist will be an ordinary citizen, who uncovers the city’s secrets one by one while managing the limited time he has every day. In order to survive we must work, visiting different places in the city and trading with others. During these trips, our protagonist will become acquainted with many characters, their goals and secrets, veiled by a seemingly impenetrable haze of mystery.

The actual protagonist of A Place for the Unwilling is supposedly… the city itself, for it’s no ordinary city; it’s grim, ghastly and obscured by fog and secrets. The atmosphere does indeed bear a resemblance to Sunless Sea. The graphics, balancing between “charming” and “odd”, may prove to be an unforgettable combination.

TENTACLE FACTOR: 2/3

Call of Cthulhu – Cthulhu fhtagn

The gloom and the 1920s – a perfect combination.

The Call of Cthulhu is the most recognized short story by Howard Phillips Lovecraft. It tells the story of a sage who stumbled upon mentions of a mysterious cult of Cthulhu while studying his grandfather’s notes. This story is also where the popular horror role-playing game by American publisher, Chaosium, from 1981 took its name from. The video game in question is supposed to be an adaptation of this oldie.

The story of the development of Call of Cthulhu is as mysterious as the story of the Great Old Ones. The initial project was born in Frogwares, but then the publisher decided it should be taken over by French studio, Cyanide, whose back catalogue contains games such as Blood Bowl, and a pretty decent stealth game, Styx: Master of Shadows. This decision will probably imply a change of genre too, from adventure to RPG.

The upcoming Call of Cthulhu still remains a mystery to a significant degree. The game is being developed on Unreal 4 engine, and the first screenshots indicate a dark atmosphere with extremely detailed visuals. Apart from that, we should also expect getting a complex RPG, since it’s an adaptation of a tabletop game. This, in turn, might mean that the most important mechanic in the game will be the one concerning the sanity of the protagonist. In the game from 1981, uncovering more intricate secrets about the Great Old Ones generates insanity points, which are harmful to the protagonist, and can eventually drive them mad. In the world where you’re constantly under threat of tentacled horror, it’s impossible to keep all your senses in check.

Might be a cracker. An experienced team, great tabletop template, and spectacular graphics can make this game wildly interesting.

TENTACLE FACTOR: 3/3

The Sinking City – a drowning man will clutch at tentacles?

All’s well that ends well. In 2015, Focus Home announced that Cyanide studio will be working on Call of Cthulhu, although the game was initially supposed to be developed by Frogwares. It seems that the creators of the popular adventure games about Sherlock Holmes developed some feelings towards Cthulhu, because they decided to stick to the same theme in their next game, under a new publisher – Bigben Interactive. We don’t care much about that swap and the reasons behind it; what’s important is that we’ll get one more disturbing game.

The Sinking City, as the developers called their new-old title, is going to be an adventure game, which is hardly surprising, considering Frogwares’ experience to date. The game developed for PC will take the players into the 1920s to a fictional city in New England that’s been struck by a flood. The natural disaster is only the beginning: many mysterious events take place, and dark creatures come to town, which will succumb to chaos and dismay. That’s when the player, assuming the role of an investigator, enters the stage.

The flooded city will witness many a grizzly scene.

In The Sinking City players will take control of a private investigator, who will try to find out the reasons behind the unnatural events, which bring chaos into the city. In terms of mechanics, we ought to expect solutions familiar to those of Sherlock Holmes – most notably a spacious open world, the biggest yet created by Frogwares. The developers also promise a non-linear story, where the order in which the cases are solved will not be predefined.

We don’t know anything else about The Sinking City. I hope that Frogwares will reach the peak of their skill, producing a game at least as good as The Testament of Sherlock Holmes. After that game, matters became worse; their next productions, Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments and Sherlock Holmes: The Devil’s Daughter received much less enthusiastic reviews. Lovecraft’s universe, however, obliges – after all, who would like to enrage the Great Old Ones with a clunky video game?

TENTACLE FACTOR: 3/3

Lovecraft Tales – tentacles’ adventures

Lovecraft Tales is a curious blend of adventure and survival.

It seems like we’ve used up our supply of big, spectacular game titles at the moment. Now it’s time for something smaller. Lovecraft Tales is being developed by a small Polish studio CVLT and features hand-painted visuals, inspired by the style of German romantic painters, or rather its perhaps most famous representative, Caspar David Friedrich.

Lovecraft Tales is an intriguing production. First, it’s an unusual mix of a classic point-and-click adventure game with some elements of both RPG and survival. In practice, the game will have us explore a vast open world and solve riddles. Is it that simple then? Not really, as our character also needs to eat, drink, and hide from unspoken, madness-inducing abominations. Second, the plot in this game is anything but linear; it comprises a number of separate adventures, linked together by individual plot threads, such as various in-game documents, notes and records. The main objective of the protagonist is to find the mysterious Black Stone.

The Polish game has been in the works for several years now, meaning that the developers have something to show now. You can download a demo directly from the devs:

• The official website of Lovecraft Tales

TENTACLE FACTOR: 2/3

At the Mountains of Madness – icy tentacles, they see me

If only the frost were my only concern...

We’ve seen At the Mountains of Madness referenced in this compilation before. This time, however, it’s an upcoming action adventure game from a debuting dev, Team Clockworks. The Spaniards have made their project available through Steam, giving us the chance to learn quite a bit about it. So we did.

In At the Mountains of Madness, we will be playing as Dr. William Dyer, a geologist and the novella’s main character. The game intends to remain quite faithful to Lovecraft’s original work, which means that we will get to visit a mysteriously abandoned camp of an Antarctic expedition. In this chillingly scary, desolate location, we will have to face the angry nature – to begin with only the most obvious threat. The real challenge, however, will be your survival in the Mountains of Madness.

This Spanish-made horror looks quite dynamic. We will observe the events from the protagonist’s point of view. Overall, the game looks rather decent. Ok, maybe not Call of Cthulhu- or The Sinking City-decent, but for an indie game, I’d say it’s not half bad. Over the course of the desperate fight for keeping our life and sanity intact, we will also have to take care of Dyer’s physical needs, as the game features some survival elements as well.

TENTACLE FACTOR: 3/3

Call of R'lyeh – tentacles call home

Call of R’lyeh provides a glance at the dreams of the Great Old One. Come and look, if you dare.

I suppose it’s not a big surprise that most games on this list belong to the horror genre, and more specifically they are FPP exploration games with some elements of survival. Call of R’lyeh, however… no, wait, this one too.

This ambitious work by the Slovak Martin Kocisek has been coming together for the last two years, and in this time we’ve learned quite a good deal about it. Fans of Lovecraft’s works may find the plot of the game especially alluring, as it promises to send us to the heart of madness itself – the city of R’lyeh – where dead Cthulhu… you already know the rest, I believe. In practice, we will only be visiting the dreams of the Great Old One, which, still, is probably as close as we can get to that bizarre place during our lifetime.

The player’s task in Call of R’lyeh is to collect ten artifacts, which will reveal to us the history of the cosmos, the Great Old Ones, and R’lyeh itself. This, in turn, will allow us to break free from Cthulhu’s traumatizing dreams. Sadly, the game is to last barely an hour. To compensate for limited play time, the game promises spectacular, very detailed visuals powered by CryEngine.

TENTACLE FACTOR: 3/3

Moons Of Madness – Lovecraft hits the orbit

There’s not much that we know of Moons of Madness – it’s an upcoming psychological horror in a science-fiction setting, developed by an independent Scandinavian team at RockPocket Games. What’s interesting, recently the game was granted 1.5 million Swedish crowns (USD 150,000) worth of financial support from the Norwegian Film Institute.

This is the first and only game on our list that will take us to outer space. While it’s hard to tell at the moment exactly how deep into the Cthulhu mythos the developers are planning to go, the fact that they referenced a Lovecraft quote even in the announcement trailer is promising, if nothing else. This title also references a work we’ve already mentioned several times in this text, the novella At the Mountains of Madness. Let’s end this paragraph with a word from the master of unspoken horror himself:

TENTACLE FACTOR: 2/3

What Remains Of Edith Finch – the story of a cursed family

So far, we have focused mostly on PC games; this one is a console exclusive. The work from the independent studio Giant Sparrow will be available only on PlayStation 4, being one of the indie games published with the support of Sony.

What Remains of Edith Finch will be an unusual production. Mainly because it’ll be a compilation of stories bound together by an important common theme – focus on the curse that befell House Finch. The game will be an FPP adventure game, and the action of individual episodes will span across various points of the entire 20th century – from its beginning till modern day. The devs at Giant Sparrow didn’t exactly set their game in the Cthulhu mythos, but the inspirations they draw from both H.P. Lovecraft and his mentor Edgar Allan Poe are clearly visible.

TENTACLE FACTOR: 2/3

The Diary of Arthur Gilman – Where’s Arthur?

The mysterious project known as The Diary of Arthur Gilman is developed by CounterCurrent Games, creators of mods for the Amnesia series. This time, they have announced an original creation – a survival horror based on the works of H.P. Lovecraft. How long until it will be complete? Hard to say; so far we only know that the name of the game’s main character is Arthur Gilman, and the game itself will focus around his exploits.

The game will be powered by Unreal Engine 4, and the announcement trailers suggest a climatic story set in a haunting (possibly haunted?) home. The devs have yet to reveal the release date of The Diary of Arthur Gilman.

TENTACLE FACTOR: 3/3

The Miskatonic – not so horrific after all

Charlotte LeStrange is the main character of The Miskatonic.

The Miskatonic is a project that barely fits into this compilation, and for several reasons. The game from Rapscallion Games will be a visual novel, and it will debut as early as in September this year. Focusing on humor, and with visuals that are stylish and full of charm more than anything else – the graphics also feature a good dose of manga influence, which is the usual characteristic of the genre (I could live without some of its more erotic elements though…).

Hilariously dark (or vice-versa), The Miskatonic will take us to the eponymous university (whose alumnus was the main character of At the Mountains of Madness). Once we’re there, we will talk, solve riddles, and reveal the secrets of that rather strange place. No worries though, the heroine will fit right in, seeing as her main objective is to summon Shub-Niggurath, one of the gods from the Cthulhu mythos.

TENTACLE FACTOR: 0/3

Asylum – an insanely mental asylum

Asylum is one of the oldest projects on this list. The game managed to raise over USD 100,000 on Kickstarter back in 2013, and still hasn’t been released. Running three years late resulted in a change of the engine and the general premise of the game. The developers, however, declare that the works are progressing, and the trailer published a year ago is supposed to prove it.

A classic theme in many horrors is a mental asylum setting. In Asylum, players find themselves in Hanwell Mental Institute, where unexplainable events had taken place. Lovecraft’s books serve as inspiration to the devs, so we can expect that dark forces are behind the mystery. According to the studio’s announcements, the game will provide over a dozen hours of gameplay with a captivating story, and over a hundred rooms to explore. Josh Mandel, who played the protagonist of King’s Quest, will voice one of the characters.

TENTACLE FACTOR: 2/3

Clockwork Empires – build with the Old Ones!

Our summary contains only one strategic game, but an extraordinary game it is. Clockwork Empires is an economic strategy similar to Anno or Settlers, featuring a steampunk setting, with emphasis on the role of the citizens. There aren’t many of them, and each one has their own personality and characteristic traits. Clockwork Empires thus references a niche genre of games similar to Dwarf Fortress.

The game features a lighthearted style, but the Lovecraftian inspiration is very obvious. Among the creatures that plague the settlement are for example the Deep Ones straight from Shadow over Innsmouth. The player’s subjects are pretty mischievous themselves, since they sometimes perform a ritual that summons an old god. Clockwork Empires develops rather slowly, but the creators publish new updates regularly – the current version is number 53. Who knows, maybe around 100 this game will be interesting enough to wake Cthulhu up...?

TENTACLE FACTOR: 1/3

Gibbous: A Cthulhu Adventure – should I laugh or should I shiver?

I smell a nostalgia trip. Or is it just me who thinks that Gibbous looks like it came from Lucas Arts?

We’ve begun with serious games, so let’s end this compilation on a lighter note. Still, do think you could laugh knowing that the team developing your game is from Transylvania (I’m not kidding)? The devs themselves certainly think so, because the team at Stuck In Attic has decided to play against everyone’s expectations and create something funny.

In Gibbous: A Cthulhu Adventure, we will visit the city of Darkham, the current location of Abdul Alhazred’s classic work – the Necronomicon (even if you don’t know anything about Lovecraft himself, chances are you’ve heard of this fictional book, which is his creation). As it was to be expected, together with the dark tome various dark forces have befallen the city. We take control of three rather distinct characters – a private investigator, a young librarian (ye gods…!), and a talking cat – trying to locate the ominous book.

It takes no more than one look at the above screenshot to understand what exactly the nature of Gibbous: A Chtulhu Adventure is – a classic point-and-click adventure game, heavily-inspired by the iconic productions from Lucas Arts, such as Day of the Tentacle or the Monkey Island series. The distinctive visual style leaves no doubt, really. What’s more, the creators promise to provide recorded dialogues for all characters, expansive story, and truckloads of dark humor. I you ask me, I’d say it looks like a must-have for the fans of oldschool adventure games… and Lovecraft.

TENTACLE FACTOR: 1/3