We’ve seen Call of Cthulhu since last year’s E3, but the latest trailer adds a whole lot more ambience and story, along with a heaping of classic Lovecraftian horror. Check it out below:
Between cultists, shifts between reality and something else, men in white cloaks and men in white jackets, a whole cornucopia of Lovecraftian horror tricks are at the ready. While the trailer shows off a spooky walking sim aspect of the game, Cyanide Studios bills their story as an investigative RPG based on Chaosium’s 1981 pen and paper game.
Call of Cthulhu centers around private investigator Edward Pierce in the early 1920s. You’re investigating the death of famous artist Sarah Hawkins and her son and husband, who perished in a fire at their home on DarkWater Island. The more you investigate and find clues, the more knowledge you will have to make decisions later in the game. Players can even recruit a small team of investigators, leading them as Pierce. But lead level designer Romain Wiart warns that Pierce’s insanity may be an inescapable conclusion.
"The more Pierce investigates, the more he may fall into madness," said Wiart.
Pierce's stats screen is called his "skill sheet," hearkening back to the game’s pen-and-paper inspiration. In early chapters, Pierce’s ability to choose between different dialogue tree options is based on his stats in Intimidation and Persuasion, normal fare for RPG fans. Later in the game, Pierce’s “Sanity Gauge” becomes more important as his investigation leads him into horrors his mortal brain can scarcely comprehend.
In fact, Pierce develops hallucinations and phobias after traumatizing events, meaning that he may be saddled with claustrophobia, but find that his only solution is to hide in a small enclosed space. Plunging Pierce into his phobias leads to losing control over the character in a mechanic directly inspired by the pen and paper RPG. But sometimes, a touch of madness may be just what he needs to accomplish a task. All of this leads to the feeling of riding along on one man’s trip into madness.
"It's like you're on an interactive adventure through a Lovecraft novel," said Wiart.
In an interview with PCGamer, lead developer Jean-Marc Gueney revealed the team’s commitment to Lovecraftian cosmic horror rather than fast-paced survival horror.
“We want to be faithful to Lovecraft’s way to instill horror,” Gueney said. “The main character will see unexplainable things, experience traumatic events, although he will have reason to doubt what he encountered. To instill that in players’ minds, we’ll use specific sound and visual effects.”
If parts of the trailers grossed you out, don’t worry: the team doesn’t plan to go whole-hog with slime and drippy bits. “We don’t want to fill the game up with dozens of tentacles and slimy creatures. We’ll use such classic horror elements with parsimony,” said Gueney. “We believe that some of the depictions of Lovecraft’s work can be fairly grotesque, and that is definitely something we are trying to avoid.”
While the monsters and reality shifts are the flashiest part of the game (as well as the part that gets the most shine in the game’s trailers), Pierce is an investigator. He must search crime scenes for clues and deduce what took place and sometimes why. You make deductions by choosing the most relevant clues when prompted, and your accuracy will affect how other key characters perceive you. Those relationships dictate the type of ending you get as well as how Pierce’s investigation turns out.
Looking forward to more of Call of Cthulhu? Call of Cthulhu is set for a release date later this year on PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4. Feel free to chat about Call of Cthulhu in our comments section below.
